Storyteller: first draft
by Kimberly-A
Summary: When Wendy encounters a mysterious homeless boy on the streets of London, her very proper life with Aunt Millicent is turned upside-down. Is he Peter Pan, as Wendy believes? If so, what has happened to bring him so low? COMPLETE
1. Who Are You?

**Author's Notes:** To those who read my other _Peter Pan_ story: This story is not a sequel to "First Kiss," and is in fact very different, based on an entirely different perspective on Peter and Neverland. It'll have some things in common with my other fic, though, such as my storytelling style (based somewhat on the narration in the film) and Peter/Wendy romance.

In writing this story, I placed Wendy and Peter's youthful Neverland adventure (i.e., the events of the film) as having taken place in 1904, the year when J.M. Barrie's play _Peter Pan_ was first performed on the London stage. Therefore, this story is set in Edwardian England, late in the year 1907.

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It might be said that the evening on which Wendy Darling's second great adventure began was that of her sixteenth birthday, as she traveled in a carriage down Oxford Street toward a party being held in her honor at the home of her parents.

Wendy was wearing her finest pale blue gown and white gloves, and her lady's maid, Lottie, had fixed her hair in the latest "Gibson Girl" style, piled atop her head and then softened so that it surrounded her face rather like a cloud. Lottie had also laced her corset even more tightly than usual, as would befit a special occasion. Wendy looked very fine indeed. She smiled politely when Aunt Millicent spoke to her.

She was utterly miserable.

Staring out the window of the carriage, Wendy thought how ironic it should be that she would be **visiting** her parents and brothers for her birthday, when the only gift she would wish would be to living with them all once more.

Aunt Millicent's house in St. John's Wood, just near Regent's Park, was very fine, but to Wendy it seemed rather empty. Empty of life, that is, for it was certainly not empty otherwise. Slightly had been sent to boarding school, as Aunt Millicent had rapidly discovered that young boys were far more disruptive than she might have originally thought them to be, and so Aunt Millicent and Wendy lived quite alone, surrounded by an oppression of thick burgundy curtains, cream lace inner curtains (for one set of curtains, it seemed, was not quite sufficient to protect oneself from the dangers that might come through windows), ornate wallpaper designed with chrysanthemums and pomegranates and other various fruits and flowers, hideously uncomfortable settees and ottomans and divans covered in richly-textured antimacassars, displays of wax fruit, wax candles, shells, a rather frighteningly intimidating number of framed photographs, useless decorative screens that hid nothing, large potted palms and aspidistra, and cases filled with arrays of pinned butterflies.

Wendy often felt as if she too belonged in one of those glass cases. As if she, too, were a butterfly who had been most untimely pinned.

She would be leaving school this year, as Aunt Millicent insisted it was no longer necessary for a young lady of sixteen. Instead, Wendy would continue her instruction with Aunt Millicent to a greater extent, with the intention of preparing her, of course, for marriage. The thought of leaving school saddened Wendy greatly, for she knew how Aunt Millicent disapproved of books for young ladies. Though Aunt Millicent herself might read novels as much as she liked, she insisted that such fare would only encourage Wendy's disturbingly fanciful imagination.

In truth, Wendy's imagination had become considerably less of a concern under Aunt Millicent's constant guidance. Wendy rarely thought of Neverland anymore, and when she did it caused a pain in her heart that no doctor's purgative could relieve.

On a rare occasion as she lay alone in her bed late at night, however, it must be acknowledged that she did sometimes wish in some small hidden part of her soul that she had stayed with Peter Pan in Neverland, for growing up had not been quite what she expected it to be.

On this particular evening, however, Wendy had no thought of Neverland in her mind. Rather, she was gazing from the carriage window, morosely anticipating her own birthday celebration, knowing full well that her aunt would insist on Wendy giving a dutiful demonstration of the effects of her singing and dancing lessons. She felt rather like a trained monkey, required to perform upon demand.

And so her thoughts were thus unhappily occupied when their carriage came to a stop in the evening crush. The horses pulling many of the carriages surrounding them had been frightened by a passing motor car, and now all movement had ceased until the animals could be calmed.

Out the window, on the twilit street, Wendy happened by chance to see the face of a young man, walking close to their carriage, though his attention was elsewhere. He slouched unhappily, hands shoved into the pockets of his thinly patched trousers. His face was very dirty, but it still touched something within Wendy. Something that caused her heart to beat more quickly.

Before she had given any thought to what she was doing, Wendy had opened the door of the carriage and leapt out. "Peter?" she cried, grabbing hold of the young man's arm so that he turned to look at her. "Peter?" His eyes were the same sea blue she remembered, clear and beautiful in his confused, soot-smeared face.

"Let go!" he insisted, attempting to pull his arm from her grasp. "I don't know you, lady!"

By now, unfortunately, Aunt Millicent had begun screaming, clinging to the side of the carriage and peering out in distress. "Oh! Police! Help!" she shrilled. "Help! My niece is being accosted by a ruffian! Help! Oh, help! Will no one help us?"

A man from another carriage leapt out to tackle the young fellow who appeared to be roughly handling and perhaps robbing a very well-dressed young lady, and threw the unwashed young man into a nearby wall before turning around to sweep a protesting Wendy into his arms as if to keep her more safe through his physical protection.

A policeman arrived at a run and grabbed Wendy's supposed attacker, pressing him quite securely against the brick wall and asking, "Are you all right, miss?"

Wendy nodded numbly, struggling feebly in her large rescuer's arms, but the gallant stranger would not release her.

Aunt Millicent was now leaning further from the carriage, now that the danger appeared to be gone. "Sir, how can we possibly thank you enough for all you have done for us?"

The tall gentleman smiled quite charmingly and said, "I'm afraid in the confusion my cab has departed. Might I ride with you ladies a short distance to the home of a patient?"

"Patient?" asked Aunt Millicent, apparently uncaring of Wendy's undignified position in the man's arms.

The man deposited Wendy comfortably in the carriage and then stood such that he was entirely blocking her view of the dirty young man still occupying her thoughts. Was it Peter? Could it be? Why did he not know her? What was he doing here? It was all terribly strange.

Apparently Aunt Millicent and the man had reached some agreement, for he climbed into the carriage and rode with them as they continued on their way to the party.

"My name is Dr. Carew," he explained with another charming smile, simultaneously handing his card to Aunt Millicent. "I am more than glad to have been able to be of service."

Wendy craned her neck in a desperate effort to catch another glimpse of the strange boy as they pulled away, but other carriages now blocked her view.

And as the well-appointed carriage drove away to carry its passengers toward their very elegant evening plans, an unnamed policeman gave a mysterious and dirty young man a very sound beating before walking away, leaving the confused and mistreated fellow lying bleeding in the street.

* * *

The party itself was quite lovely of course, for Wendy rarely saw her brothers anymore, though St. John's Wood was not so very far from Bloomsbury. Aunt Millicent seemed to feel that noisy young boys were not appropriate company for a proper young lady. Talking with them at the party was therefore a rare and wonderful treat.

Aunt Millicent had also, of course, invited several very appropriate young men and women of the best society. Wendy did not know many of them, but was expected to be pleasant and grateful that they had come.

There was tea and punch and cakes, and Mother played the piano while everyone danced. Though Aunt Millicent had urged Wendy in advance that she should dance only with the eligible young men in attendance, Wendy chose in some small measure of rebellion to dance the first dance with Nibs, which caused that young man to become quite puffed up with his own importance. In truth, he had nursed something of an attachment to Wendy for some time, though he knew that Aunt Millicent would never consider him a suitable match.

After dancing with Nibs, and then John, and then Tootles, Wendy was abruptly pulled aside by Aunt Millicent, who informed her that she would spend the rest of the party dancing only with the young gentlemen whom Aunt Millicent had invited, and do no more of this insolent dancing with her brothers. Wendy nodded unhappily, and re-entered the drawing room.

Mother happened to turn at that moment and ask Wendy, "Would you like to sing a song, dear? You do have such a lovely voice since you began training with your aunt." Mother smiled, so that it seemed a genuine compliment, but to Wendy it felt still like a prison. Knowing her place, however, she smiled and nodded, stepping forward to stand beside the piano.

As Mother began to play a familiar and popular tune, Wendy sang in a bright soprano:

_Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,  
Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?  
Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway, far,  
Before you agonize them in farewell,  
Before you agonize them in farewell?_

Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,  
Where are you now?  
Where are you now?

Pale hands, pink-tipped, like Lotus buds that float  
On those cool waters where we used to dwell,  
I would have rather felt you round my throat  
Crushing out life, than waving me farewell!  
Crushing out life, than waving me farewell.

Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,  
Where are you now?  
Where are you now?

As she sang, Wendy thought once more of the young man she had seen on the street. He had looked so very much like Peter Pan! She found herself thinking of Peter more than she had done in a very long time, wondering what had become of him and if he might truly be in London for some unknown reason.

But when her song was done, Wendy was called once more to behave as a proper lady would do, and to dance and make conversation with her guests. She had little more time for thought.

Though she warmly directed others to the refreshments her parents had provided, Wendy herself took neither food nor drink. She had eaten some small amount before leaving Aunt Millicent's house, and her aunt had insisted, as ever, that a true lady does not have a good appetite, just as she does not leap about with great energy. A true lady is quiet and still, eating little and taking no exercise aside from the occasional walk through the park, where one might be seen to advantage.

On this diet of little food or exercise, Wendy had grown from a robust young girl to a rather delicate young woman. Her skin was so pale as to be translucent, which Aunt Millicent said was one of her best features. She sometimes found herself out of breath, though whether that was lack of exercise or the tightness of her corset was not entirely clear.

Growing up was proving to be rather a trial, if the truth be known. But she no longer had a choice.

Wendy was once again jolted from her private reveries by some of her brothers clamoring for a story. "Please do tell a story, Wendy!" "Just one!" "Just a little one!" "Just a **very** little one!" "A story about Peter!" "A story about pirates!" They really were making quite a din, and the more elegant party guests were looking rather repulsed by the coarseness of it all, and so Mother and Father shushed the boys gently.

Glancing Aunt Millicent's way, Wendy saw her disapproving glare, accompanied by her tight headshake of refusal. Turning once more toward her brothers, Wendy said gently, and not entirely untruthfully, "I have no stories to tell tonight, boys. I'm sorry." The boys moaned and sighed and made other disappointed noises, but even they were soon silenced by Aunt Millicent's sour face.

Even still, it must be admitted that even upon their best behavior and even in the face of Aunt Millicent's disapproval, the boys were not entirely well-behaved, and in fact one of the twins nearly set fire to the tablecloth, though that unfortunate young fellow was snatched up before any real damage had been done and then banished upstairs to the nursery for the remainder of the evening, which was not so very long afterward. The Darling household was not the best of locations for a gathering of young society people.

All of the elegant young ladies and gentleman said their very elegant good-byes, and then Wendy exchanged many hugs and kisses with the members of her family, and before she knew it Wendy was once more in her very elegant bedroom back in St. John's Wood, having her very elegant clothing and hairstyle undone by Lottie.

"Did you like the party, Miss?" asked Lottie as she unlaced Wendy's corset.

"It was fine," Wendy replied with no enthusiasm and no inflection. She had no more to say. What more **was** there to say?

For Wendy had gone so very long without telling stories that she had quite lost her skill. In Aunt Millicent's diligence to ensure that Wendy did not become an unmarriagable novelist, she had stifled Wendy's every storytelling outlet. Even Wendy's dreams had become boring affairs, full of embroidery and tapestry work, piano lessons and visits to Aunt Millicent's very elegant acquaintances. She had lost her ability to imagine.

But on this evening, Wendy found some tiny, lonely spark lighting in her long unused imagination. For she was certain that the young man on the street had been Peter Pan. She was utterly convinced. And what might have brought Peter Pan to such a sorry state was quite unimaginable. Whatever it was, it must have been quite horrible.

Whatever the reason, she was going to find him again. Tomorrow she would start looking for Peter Pan.

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**Author's Notes:** The song Wendy sings was written in 1902, with lyrics by Lawrence Hope and music by Amy Woodforde-Finden.


	2. Tell Me A Story

**Author's Note:** Now to learn more about this "mysterious boy". Thanks to Squeezynz for my first and only review of this story thus far. :)

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The next day, when Wendy left school, she did not return to Aunt Millicent's home as usual. Instead, she went to the section of Oxford Street where she had seen the young man who looked so much like Peter. The sidewalks were dirty, running with substances Wendy could not even begin to identify, nor did she wish to. The smell was unpleasant in the extreme.

Wendy could not stay long, lest her aunt notice her absence, but she walked briskly for a few minutes, looking about her with urgent interest. She saw many men with dirtied faces, but none had sea green eyes.

Disappointed, Wendy climbed once more into Aunt Millicent's carriage and returned to the house.

* * *

After dinner, Wendy and Aunt Millicent sat quietly in the darkly oppressive sitting room, each working on tapestry designs for pillows. How many tapestried pillows one could possibly need, Wendy had no idea. But apparently she and her aunt were going to make a brave attempt to find out.

They spoke little during such evenings, but Aunt Millicent did expect to hear some small bits of news about Wendy's day.

"Kitty Eliot has been having great problems with her embroidery," lied Wendy hesitantly, staring intently at her needlework while telling her first story in more than two years' time. "I ... I thought I might help her with it, as you have taught me so very well, Aunt."

Aunt Millicent, always susceptible to flattery, smiled magnanimously and nodded. "If you want to help Miss Kitty Eliot with her embroidery, I think it a fine idea." Feeling content that her charge was showing such interest in the homely arts, as well as forming a potentially advantageous friendship, Aunt Millicent generously suggested, "Spend as much time with her as you like, dear."

Wendy smiled a secret smile as she worked the tapestry in her lap. Let Aunt Millicent think what she would ... Wendy had just obtained for herself some small amount of freedom. Freedom to search for Peter.

* * *

And so Wendy returned to Oxford Street after school the following day. And then the day after that. And then every day after school for four more days, asking questions of everyone she met, but none knew of the boy she was seeking. Or they were afraid to speak to such a well-dressed young lady.

It was after more than a week's searching that Wendy at long last saw the face that had been haunting her dreams since she'd seen him on the night of her birthday. But she did not see the young man as she had expected to. Instead, she saw a figure huddled in a heap against a wall, appearing half-dead with cold and want, his shirtless neck and shoulders visible through the tears in his thin jacket. He wore neither shoes nor stockings, but on his head was a threadbare cloth cap.

Wendy gathered her skirts in her hands and knelt near the young man who looked so like Peter Pan, though grown pale and gaunt with hunger. His eyes were large as he looked at her, but then suddenly he flinched in recognition.

"Get away from me, you!" he insisted weakly. "I'm not getting beaten by those damn police because of you again!"

Wendy raised her hands in placation, her skirts thereby trailing in the dirt upon the ground. "I mean you no harm," she insisted firmly. "I want only to help you, Peter."

Sitting up in a rather defensive posture, the young fellow asked, "Why do you keep calling me that name?"

Wendy bit her lip and tilted her head to look more closely at his face. It **was** Peter! She was **sure** it was! She would never forget that dear, dear face. She put all of her certainty into her voice when she replied, "I call you Peter because it is your name."

Frowning in distrustful curiosity, the young man offered, "People here call me 'Jack'."

Wendy frowned in turn, then asked with a slight raising of her chin, "Do you mind if I continue to call you 'Peter'?"

Shaking his head with a bit of a smile, impressed with the lady's gumption, the young man said, "If you wish it."

Wendy's eyes grew very wide and a grin spread across her face. "Oh, Peter!" she exclaimed, reaching forward to take his hands in hers. "I knew it was you!"

But Jack pulled quickly away from her, watching her now through narrowed eyes. "What are you on about, then? Do I know you?"

Wendy realized that she had behaved perhaps somewhat too impulsively, for something very strange was still afoot. Why did Peter not remember her? And what was he doing here? These were questions she had asked herself previously, but when faced with the subject of her musings, they became only more urgent.

Perhaps she had been going about this the wrong way. Perhaps she should instead ask questions, so that she might try to puzzle out what terrible turn of events had brought Peter to the streets of London in such a state.

"Where are you from, Peter?"

"Here."

"Here in London?"

Jack nodded. "Oxford Street. I live here."

"Where before here?"

Once again, Jack was peering at her suspiciously. "Why do you want to know so much about a street fellow, a fine lady like you?"

Wendy sat upon the ground before this JackPeter or PeterJack, her skirts surely being sullied beyond cleaning, and looked frankly into his face. "Because I know you, Peter. I knew you before."

Shaking his head with disbelief, Jack insisted, "I've never met you before, besides the night I got my head bashed in because of when you grabbed me." And, at this, Jack fingered a spot on his head, where some lasting injury perhaps lay hidden beneath his cap. With a remembering wince, Peter said stubbornly, "You should probably go on, now, Miss. I don't want any trouble."

"Will you be here tomorrow?" Wendy asked, just as stubborn in her turn.

With a grudging nod, Jack admitted, "I'm always here."

And so Wendy allowed herself to be shooed away, secure in the knowledge that she could find this PeterJack or JackPeter again after school the following day, and dearly hoping that Lottie could lift the stains from her dress before Aunt Millicent saw them.

* * *

The next day, Wendy arrived on Oxford Street again, this time carrying a small bag that contained some bread and cheese. She'd used her pocket money to buy it, because Peter had looked so very hungry when she'd last seen him, she simply could not bear it.

When she found him again, he lay in the same place, still huddled against the wall as if trying to escape the wind.

"Peter?" she called gently, unsure if he was asleep or awake. He turned to look at her, and she smiled. He seemed sleepily surprised to see a smile for him upon such a clean and beautiful face, but then he woke up further he suddenly remembered her and warily struggled to a sitting position.

Holding out the bag which contained the food she'd brought, Wendy explained, "I brought you something to eat," hopefully watching his face for some indication of softening toward her.

He snatched the bag from her hands and began voraciously gobbling down the bread and cheese she'd bought with her pocket money. If she had realized he was truly **this** hungry, she would have brought more.

When the food was gone, he looked up at her once again, now somewhat embarrassed. "Thank you," he said belatedly. "I was very hungry."

Nodding and once again taking a seated position beside him, Wendy replied, "I dare say you still are, Peter."

With a shrug, Jack admitted, "Always am. But even a little food in my belly is a good thing. Thank you."

With an amused smile, Wendy said, "You thanked me already."

The boy smiled tentatively back and admitted, "I guess I did."

Wendy couldn't help gazing intently at his face as he smiled. Yes, it was all the same. His face was the same. His eyes, his nose, his smile. He was a few years older, just as she was, but this was definitely Peter Pan. But why didn't **he** know it? And why had he grown older? And ... oh there were just **too** many questions!

"Why are you staring at me like that?" he asked, glancing away uncomfortably.

Wendy blushed lightly. "I'm sorry, Peter. I was just ... you look just the same as when I knew you before, only a little older."

"How would a fine lady like you know a scalawag like me?"

"You weren't always a scalawag, Peter." Then, realizing what she had said, Wendy could not stop herself from grinning. "Well ... actually, yes, you were, but you were a **different** sort of scalawag when I knew you before."

Jack was quiet a long moment, and then admitted softly, as if he were revealing a great secret, "I don't remember much before living here." Then he looked up to meet her eyes, and in his there seemed to be shining a dim light of hope. "Do you think you might really have known me? I knew a fine lady like you?"

Wendy nodded with serious eyes gazing directly into his own. "Yes, Peter. And you were my hero."

* * *

When Wendy arrived the next day, young PeterJack sat once more in his same location upon the sidewalk, though this time he looked rather as if he had been expecting her. She thought his face looked even as if he had perhaps attempted to wipe it, though it was quite clear that water had not been involved, let alone soap.

An apple crate sat beside him. When he saw her, he gestured to the crate with an embarrassed shrug. "You shouldn't have to sit on the ground," he mumbled self-consciously.

Wendy sat upon the crate as if it were the finest chair in Aunt Millicent's well-appointed home, for she was pleased and honored that Peter had thought about her comfort. "Thank you," she said with real pleasure in both her eyes and her voice, and PeterJack blushed.

"I told Old Hettie and Big George this morning that they should call me 'Peter' now," he said hesitantly, his shoulders hunching further as if to protect him from a blow. "I told them it's my proper name." For, in truth, though he was still dubious about the truth of all this, the young man had come to believe that even if he was not the person this lovely lady sought, he would **like** to be the man who was her hero, and so he chose to believe her tale. He simply **chose** to believe. It was certainly far better than believing he was a worthless piece of garbage, in any case.

His words made Wendy smile even more broadly, and she clasped her hands together in her lap to keep herself from throwing her arms around him. At her movement, she remembered that she held another bag of food for Peter -- and indeed we shall call him "Peter" now, since he himself had accepted the name.

"More food for you," she explained, offering him the bag.

This time, however, Peter took great care to smile politely and take the bag without snatching it from her hands. "Thank you," he said deliberately, before opening the bag and eagerly eating the bread, cheese, and apple contained therein.

"So, Peter, what do you remember before you came to live on Oxford Street?" Wendy thought it wise to begin at what seemed the beginning of this tangle.

Shaking his head as he chewed, Peter mumbled, "Not much."

Wendy found herself quite uncertain where to begin, for talk of flying children and fairies and mermaids and pirates seemed likely to convince Peter once more that he should not listen to her. And so she considered carefully what she might say that he might actually believe.

"You had six brothers," Wendy began with determination, "Nibs, Slightly, Tootles, Curly, and the twins. You were the eldest, and you took care of the others, almost like a father."

"I don't remember that," admitted Peter with curious eyes.

"They were quite excitable boys, really, always racing off to fun and adventure, and you were the most adventurous of them all." Peter seemed to be listening closely to what she said, but he offered no response.

"You lived ... er ... in the country," continued Wendy, once again put into the situation of telling a story, this time even more so. She found herself quite dismayed, for the storytelling skill had utterly left her. The sensation was nearly painful. But it was important for Peter, and so she would not surrender to her own weakness.

"There were many trees, and lakes, and rivers," she continued, "and you all played among them every day."

Nodding slowly, as if trying to take all of this information in, Peter urged Wendy, "Tell me more."

* * *

Wendy had been visiting Peter on Oxford Street every day for nearly a week -- telling him more and more about the less fantastical elements of his life in Neverland and their previous times together -- when he interrupted her story for the first time to ask a question.

"Was there a man?" asked Peter uncertainly. "A man with ... long dark hair ... and a red hat ... and he ... he made me cry?"

Her heart suddenly in her throat, Wendy nodded without making a sound.

"He was very unkind to me," wondered Peter slowly, as if searching his memory for each word. "I think ... I think he may have even tried to kill me," Peter hazarded, glancing nervously at Wendy's face to see if she now thought him insane to have thought this outlandish thing.

This time, Wendy could not restrain herself, and she clasped Peter's hands in hers, crying gladly, "Yes, Peter! He did! That was Hook!"

Peter frowned in confusion, embarrassedly pulling his dirty hands from her pale clean ones. "Hook? Was that his name?"

Wendy nodded excitedly, "Yes, Peter! What else do you remember?"

But here Peter shook his head, almost as if in apology. "Only that. Only this ... Hook ... and I remember very little about him, anyway. Only ... feelings, really. And some vague images." He looked downcast now, as if certain he had disappointed Wendy.

Wendy continued to grin at him, however, and said, "But you have remembered something, Peter! You have remembered!"

Caught up in her enthusiasm, Peter found himself smiling hesitantly, and marveling, not for the first time, at the beauty and kindness of this young woman who seemed to care about him, even as wretched as he was. He knew it was inappropriate for him to have such thoughts about a fine lady, but he found himself wishing that he were somehow deserving of her. He knew he was not, but he could not stop himself from wishing.

* * *

The next time Wendy came to visit Oxford Street, she had a very determined look to her face, and she walked as if she were going in to battle. Peter watched her warily.

"I have made a decision," Wendy proclaimed before even saying hello or giving Peter any food. This was most irregular.

"You are to come home with me," Wendy said firmly, her chin tilted at a decidedly challenging angle.

Peter looked down at himself in his dirt and rags and shook his head. "You know I can't do that," he replied. "Just look at me."

Her chin raising even a bit more, Wendy insisted, "You could have a bath. And eat a real meal, with hot food. And sleep in a real bed, where it is warm and soft."

But Peter could be as stubborn as she, and he knew that what she suggested was impossible. "I can't, Wendy." And that was the first time he had used her name, rather than calling her "Miss". Aunt Millicent would be horrified at the familiarity, but Wendy found herself strangely thrilled by this additional sign of the Peter Pan she had known. "It wouldn't be..." stammered Peter ashamedly, "It just wouldn't be **right**."

But Wendy had made her decision, and she would not be gainsaid. "Peter, I cannot live in a fine house while you sleep on the hard ground with no food or shelter. **That** is what is not right. And so if you will not come home with me today, right this instant, then I shall instead sleep on this very ground, just as you do." And at that, Wendy sat upon the sidewalk and crossed her arms.

Their battle of wills lasted rather an extended period of time and included some rather heated arguments during which both their voices were raised and they drew the attention of several passersby, but after a rather prolonged silent staring contest, Peter finally relented. "If you wish it," he grumbled ungraciously, sending Wendy leaping to her feet with a cry of joy.

Taking the young man's arm, Wendy immediately led him to the street, hailed a hansom cab, and gave the driver Aunt Millicent's address.

Now would come the **true** test of Wendy's resolve.

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**Author's Note:** Oh, I think Aunt Millicent is going to think this is a DANDY idea, don't you? Find out next time!


	3. By the Light of the Lamp

**Author's Note:** This chapter (and some future chapters) will include some dialogue from the movie, but it will not always be entirely accurate, because Wendy is quoting it from her own memories from three years before.

Thank you to all who have reviewed! You rock!

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Aunt Millicent, as one might imagine, was most decidedly **not** pleased when her niece arrived on the doorstep in the company of a rag-tag beggar. Initially, she would not permit Peter to enter the house at all, but when Wendy too then insisted upon remaining outside and arguing where all neighbors might see and hear, Aunt Millicent ushered them both inside with an anxious glance to each side to see if anyone had been watching.

"Miss Wendy Darling, you shock and appall me!" Aunt Millicent scolded in her most prim voice as they stood in the entryway beside the ornate umbrella stand that looked like a swan with umbrellas all cruelly impaling its back. Glancing with great distaste at Peter, Aunt Millicent continued, "You know quite well that I cannot offer room and board to every beggar on the street! I should be quite ruined!"

Wendy had followed Aunt Millicent's instructions in all things for years, but she now found herself utterly determined to have her own way. Wendy knew that she was right, and Aunt Millicent was wrong, and she would not surrender in this.

"Aunt Millicent, I do not ask you to welcome every poor soul in London. I ask you only to welcome this one young man, who is my very dear friend, and who has fallen upon most wretched hard times."

Aunt Millicent's back straightened with her anxiety at Wendy's usage of the phrase "very dear friend," for this grimy fellow was simply not a good connection for a proper young lady of society. Aunt Millicent looked rather as if she had suddenly tasted a particularly tart lemon. "Absolutely not, young lady!"

"Would you have me abandon a friend so, Aunt? Does a proper English lady show so little loyalty and honor? Should not a true lady be gracious and generous to those less fortunate?"

Aunt Millicent refused to show it upon her face, but she did feel somewhat chastened by her charge. To be so rebuked by the very young lady she was instructing! It was quite irregular, more than a little impertinent, and not at all becoming. But Aunt Millicent had never been a particularly clever woman, and Wendy was confusing and confounding her. It was but a matter of time before Wendy Darling had her way.

"I **will** help him, Aunt. I **must** help him. It is the right and noble thing to do. Think of when Slightly arrived, when he too was dirty and without a home. You welcomed him and cared for him. Do you not remember?"

Aunt Millicent toyed with the locket at her throat, though she had repeatedly instructed Wendy that such fidgeting was unladylike. "If we are to have such a fellow under this roof," Aunt Millicent began, sending a rush of joy through Wendy's spirit, "then we must have a doctor in to ... to examine him for ... diseases. He is so very ... **dirty**." She eyed Peter as if he were some particularly disgusting insect that had found its impertinent way into her orderly home.

Wendy only nodded, smiling happily. "I shall tell Lottie to draw him a bath."

Throughout this conversation, Peter had remained quite still, his eyes and ears attentive to all that surrounded him. The older woman seemed decidedly unpleasant and clearly disliked him in the extreme, and her home was quite shockingly fine, filled with all manner of ornate and shining objects. Peter caught sight of himself in the looking glass that hung to one side of the entranceway, and his soiled face and clothes looked ridiculously incongruous surrounded by such finery. He felt a rather irrational urge to flee.

But at that moment the lovely Wendy took his arm once more to lead him up the stairs. As they passed a young woman dressed more plainly than Wendy and her aunt, Wendy said, "Lottie, would you draw a bath for Mr. Pan? And see if Harry might have some clothing he could borrow." The other woman curtsied and walked away.

Wendy led Peter to a room that looked decidedly feminine in its furnishings, with pink patterned wallpaper and dressing table covered with decorative glass bottles. The windows were covered in dark pink velvet curtains with cream lace curtains within, matching the colors in the wallpaper. The large bed was covered in a pink and white coverlet, and hung with white curtains all 'round, though they were currently pulled aside and fastened to the bedposts with satin ribbons.

Peter found himself increasingly uncomfortable. He was expected to sleep **here**?

"I do apologize for all of the pink," Wendy said ruefully, "but Aunt Millicent decorated the guest room based purely upon her own tastes. My own room is much the same. Her own is only more ornate."

Peter stood awkwardly beside the young lady who had brought him to this strange land and clasped his hands together, afraid to touch anything. His eyes alone moved, examining the room in some dismay.

* * *

Peter had never been particularly bothered about bathing, but he found that he was surprisingly glad to rid himself of the dirt and smells of the street. He even scrubbed his fingernails, though they did not come entirely clean. Still, with his light brown hair now damply tousled and his skin scrubbed until it was nearly pink, Peter looked like quite a different young man. 

After Peter had bathed and dressed in some spare clothes given him by Harry, Aunt Millicent's driver, it was time for dinner. Downstairs, out of his hearing, Wendy and her aunt were talking about their visitor.

"I shall send up a tray to the young man," Aunt Millicent decided, loathe to dine with a heathen at her own dining table. If she had seen him after his bath, she might have been slightly more charitable, but she had no interest in seeing him again. "I'm sure he will be **much** more comfortable dining in the guest room this evening."

Wendy was unhappy with this line of thinking, but after winning such a great victory as welcoming Peter into her aunt's home, Wendy was wise enough to hold her tongue on such a small matter.

* * *

And in truth Aunt Millicent was correct in her excuses, for Peter was quite pleased to have a tray of hot food delivered to him without his being forced into the company of such a disapproving and formidable lady. Unsure where he should eat this fine meal and not wishing to make any sort of mess, Peter at length sat cross-legged upon the floor beside the bed and ate as if he were at a picnic, or still out on the street.

After he had finished eating, he opened his door cautiously and peered outside. The plainly dressed blonde woman was nearby, and asked him if she might take his tray. Peter nodded, feeling rather overwhelmed by the entire experience of this evening, and brought his tray to her, thanking her. She smiled and left, and so Peter went back into his room. He was unsure whether the door was meant to be left open or closed, but the older woman had seemed so disgusted by him that he decided to close the door so he would not have to encounter her more than necessary.

He heard various noises in the house, soft talking between ladies, footsteps, doors opening and closing, water running, etc. After some time of such noises, all fell quiet, and Peter no longer saw light shining from beneath his door. It would appear they had extinguished the lamps and retired for the evening.

Climbing fully clothed into the pink and white bed, Peter lay upon his back and stared at the ceiling above him. He thought of closing the curtains around the bed, but then feared someone might catch him unawares if his vision was so obstructed. And so he lay and listened to his heartbeat in the silence. He was not certain whether he could sleep on so soft a surface, and in such quiet. It was all so unfamiliar.

Peter had been lying in thought for some time when he heard a gentle knock upon his door, so quiet that he almost did not hear it. Frightened that perhaps he was to be kicked out into the street, Peter crept to the door and opened it, only to see Wendy in a high-necked lavender dressing gown, her hair streaming down about her shoulders. She carried a small lamp which illumined her face, making her look as if she were lit from within like an angel.

"I thought you might be lonely in a strange place," she whispered, "particularly because you were not with us at dinner." She knew this was most unseemly, for her to visit a young man's bedchamber in the night, with no chaperone, and in her dressing gown. But this was Peter! Normal rules did not apply.

"I thought you might like to talk, as we have always done. I thought perhaps it might help you be more comfortable, perhaps help you sleep."

His sea blue eyes wide in surprise and curiosity, Peter opened the door and let Wendy enter, then closed it again behind her, lest the older woman hear them talking. "I **was** having trouble going to sleep," Peter admitted quietly.

Wendy sat upon the floor at the foot of the bed and patted the rug beside her, admiring his lovely brown hair with its blond streaks. He looked quite handsome in the lamplight, very like the boy she had known so long ago. He had changed little, really. Older, but still the same.

She and Peter sat cross-legged together and leaned their backs upon the footboard of the bed. Sitting so near her, away from the street for the first time, Peter could smell her hair and skin. She smelled of soap and flowers. It was a very nice smell.

"Will you tell me more stories of when you knew me before?" Peter asked softly, the dim light of her lamp making his eyes seem to glow. When Wendy nodded, he asked softly, "You've never said ... how did we first meet?"

Wendy grinned and whispered, "Well, you needed some sewing done, you see, for you had had a bit of an accident. And so I brought out my needle and thread and sewed you up, good as new. And then you, cheeky boy, you leapt up and cried, 'Oh, the cleverness of me!'"

"I said that?" whispered Peter in surprise.

"Yes, Peter."

"That **was** quite cheeky, after you had helped me."

"Yes, it was, Peter. And so I was upset with you. But then you came to me and you said that one girl is worth more than twenty boys..."

"I said that?"

"Yes, Peter. Why?"

"Well, I suppose it's true, anyway."

This made Wendy smile. "And so you asked me to come help you care for your brothers, and I went with you, and they built me a little house, with a chimney and windows and a door knocker. It was the most cunning little house I have ever seen!"

"You **left** with me?" asked Peter, somewhat scandalized and suddenly wondering exactly what their previous relationship had been. Such a fine young lady? Run away with **him**?

Wendy whispered reassuringly, "We were but children, Peter. Eventually I did return to my parents, but first we had many adventures together."

"You and me and my brothers?"

"Yes, and my brothers, as well, Peter."

"Oh, well, if your brothers were there, too."

"They were. And you played at pretending to be the father, and when the boys accidentally hurt me, you chased them around, saying that we should kill them before they hurt me again."

"My brothers hurt you?"

"Yes, but they didn't know. It's very difficult to explain, Peter. I am sorry."

"Did they ever hurt you again?"

"No, Peter. They were perfectly lovely boys, though a bit wild."

"What happened next?"

"Well, a bad man had taken my brothers prisoner..."

"The bad man I remembered? The one with the dark hair and the red hat ... and the ... he had something wrong with his hand."

"Yes, Peter, it was Hook who had my brothers. Do you remember anything more about him?"

"No. I can't even remember his face, it's all very vague still. I'm sorry."

"Oh, Peter, you do not need to apologize. I am sure you will remember eventually."

"I hope so. So what happened when Hook had your brothers?"

"We went after them, and you showed me how to fight, and then you said, 'Promise me one thing,' and I asked you what, and you said, 'Leave Hook to me!'"

"I imagine I did not want you to be injured or captured, if the fellow was so very fierce."

"Perhaps so, Peter, but I thought you were treating me like a helpless girl. I was quite frustrated with you."

"And so what did you do?"

"Oh, I was very foolish, and I called after you, and Hook heard me. He came to look for me, but I hid and he did not see me."

"Well, that's a relief!"

"I agree! And then you fooled Hook by mimicking his voice oh so very cleverly, Peter! It was quite something to see and hear!"

"I mimicked his voice? What did I say?"

Wendy giggled quietly, and then whispered, "You said that you were Captain Hook, and then Hook said..." -- and here Wendy tried to lower her voice into a Hook-like growl, still trying to keep as quiet as possible -- "'If you are Hook, then who am I?' and you said, 'You are a **codfish**!'"

Peter laughed quietly. "He must have been very angry."

Wendy nodded. "He was. You always made him very angry. And so we saved my brothers, and you were a hero, Peter."

"A hero," Peter sighed softly. "I was a hero?"

Wendy smiled gently. "So very many times, Peter."

Peter nodded slowly, his eyes shining with wonder. "Tell me more!" he whispered eagerly.

"I'm afraid it's growing very late, Peter. I must go to bed, and allow you to sleep."

"Just tell me one more thing, Wendy! Please?"

"All right, Peter." She tried to think of something else she could tell him that was not too strange, and then she thought of something. "We danced together in the forest. And it was so beautiful!"

"You and I danced?"

Wendy nodded. "Shall I show you?"

Peter looked very uncertain when he said, "You want me to dance with you?"

Wendy nodded again and stood, holding out her arms.

Peter climbed to his feet, his limbs made awkward by nervousness, but he made a small bow before he placed his right hand shyly upon Wendy's waist. Wendy took his left hand in her right one -- her hand was so soft! -- and placed her left hand upon his shoulder. And then they began to dance in the lamp-lit bedroom, dancing to music that played only in their heads. Peter looked tentatively into Wendy's eyes, and he felt suddenly warmed by what he saw when she looked at him.

Pulling his hands away from her in a sudden burst of anxiety but still standing very close, Peter asked softly, "What happened after we danced?"

Looking up into Peter's face, though he would not meet her eyes, Wendy whispered, "We spoke of love, Peter."

Peter's eyes met Wendy's once more and he whispered hoarsely, "What did I say about love?"

Wendy's eyes clouded oh so subtly, but Peter saw it. "You said you had never felt it. You said that the very sound of it offended you."

Peter tilted his head, took a deep breath, and said softly, "Wendy, I think I must have been lying."

Wendy smiled weakly and stepped away from Peter, smoothing her hair with her hands and tightening the already snug belt of her dressing gown. "I should go, Peter. I hope you sleep well."

"I'm sure I will. Thank you, Wendy."

Touching his arm lightly in farewell, Wendy whispered, "You are welcome, Peter." And then she was gone in a soft rustling of fabric and the smell of soap and flowers, and Peter found himself once more alone in his darkened pink bedroom.

Climbing up to lie flat on his back again on the bed, Peter drifted off to sleep quite easily this time, and dreamed wonderful dreams he had never imagined before. He dreamt of dancing with Wendy in a forest, and she was so beautiful she looked as if she were lit from within, like an angel.

But in his dream, they rose into the air as they danced, and small lights flew 'round them, and it was like magic.

___________________________________

**TBC ...**


	4. The Power of Stories

**Author's Note:** The previous chapter was all Peter and Wendy. This one is mostly not, and I'm afraid it may be a bit dull, but this chapter is nonetheless important to later events.

_____________________________________

The next morning, Peter was wakened from a deep sleep by another knock at the door. Thinking that it might be Wendy again, he leapt from the bed and cried, "Come in," while wiping his eyes to help him waken more fully.

Instead of Wendy, however, the blonde maid entered with a tray, upon which various items were arrayed. "Your tea, sir," the woman said, setting the tray upon a small, intricately painted table against the wall.

"Tea?" asked Peter doubtfully, as if fearful that the unfamiliar young woman was mocking him in some way he did not understand.

"Yes, sir," Lottie replied, and then upon seeing how confused the lad seemed to be, she poured a cup of tea for him and left it upon the tray, along with the few pieces of buttered toast.

Peter nodded hesitantly, only approaching the tray after the strange woman had left. He lifted the tea cup and smelled the contents, his head jerking backward at the strong scent. Hazarding a small sip of the liquid, he started sharply at the sudden and unpleasant sensation of burning his tongue. He very nearly splashed the tea onto the floor and himself, but only his natural grace saved him from needing to explain stains to his hostesses.

For, indeed, Peter found that he was feeling much more himself this morning, though still uncertain who exactly that might be. He found that he felt more comfortable, more agile, more energetic, and more cheerful.

And something inside him said that these changes were due not to hot food or a comfortable bed, but rather Wendy's stories. He felt as if, somehow, Wendy's stories were nourishing him in some way he did not understand. He felt stronger this morning, and more sure of himself. He felt, in fact, as if this had been building within him since the evening when Wendy had first grabbed his arm in the street, that something had been growing with every story she told, and that it had somehow flowered after last night's tales.

He did not understand it, but he somehow did not find this strange feeling within him frightening. He simply wanted to hear more stories!

* * *

Unsure whether he was welcome in other parts of the house, Peter stayed in his pink and white monstrosity of a bedroom until a strange man came to the door and asked to come in to see him.

"I am Dr. Carew," explained the older man with an abbreviated bow. "Miss Millicent Tilney has called me to examine you."

"I don't need a doctor," objected Peter immediately, backing away.

"My good fellow, it is only a precaution. A lady such as Miss Tilney cannot welcome a young man such as yourself into her fine home without knowing that he is free of disease, so that he will not endanger herself or her charge."

"I'm not sick," insisted Peter, eyeing the doctor mistrustfully.

"Come, come. Let us get this over with, shall we? It shall not be painful, I assure you. Come, sit upon the bed so that I might examine you."

Eyes narrowed with suspicion, Peter edged forward and sat upon the bed as the doctor had indicated.

The doctor performed all manner of ridiculous tests, instructing Peter to stick out his tongue and make various noises, pressing a cold thing to both his back and front and telling him to breathe deeply, requiring him to walk about the room, peering into his eyes and ears, and various other strange things.

At length, the doctor pulled away and asked him, "How long have you lived on the streets, Peter?"

Peter shrugged carelessly. "Two years, maybe. Something like that."

Dr. Carew shook his head in disgust. "You should find yourself a job, lad."

"It isn't that easy!" replied Peter, offended at the older man's tone.

But the doctor simply regarded him with cold eyes and said, "You are a fool, boy. You live in poverty because you are a fool. No man need live a life less than he likes, as long as he is willing to do what is necessary to obtain it."

Crossing his arms sternly, Dr. Carew concluded, "You are perfectly healthy, young Peter. Therefore, I can assume only that you have remained poor due to laziness." Once more shaking his head in disapproval, Dr. Carew strode from the room, leaving Peter staring after him in mute fury.

* * *

Dr. Carew had been invited to join the ladies of the household for luncheon, and so he waited in the drawing room while Miss Tilney and Miss Darling dressed for the meal. They had, of course, been dressed quite beautifully when he arrived, but company for luncheon required a change of attire.

Peter, of course, had no appropriate clothing for such a meal, and so Aunt Millicent once more ordered that a tray be taken to his room.

After she had finished dressing, Wendy went to Peter's room to talk to him before going downstairs. He had now been given the doctor's approval, and so Aunt Millicent reluctantly gave Wendy permission to speak to the boy. Only so long, however, as the door remained open, of course.

"Peter," Wendy began, "I'm afraid Aunt Millicent has again refused ... er ... I mean ... Aunt Millicent thinks it best that you not join us at table. I'm very sorry, Peter. Honestly."

Pacing restlessly, Peter waved a hand and said, "I don't care about that. But I **am** starting to feel like a prisoner in this room. I never knew how much I hated pink." Peter eyed the wallpaper with loathing.

Wendy watched him as he moved, and was surprised to see that some of his old lithe grace had returned to him. Was it her imagination? He seemed stronger, more confident, more like the boy she had met so long ago, his head held just a little higher.

She thought -- and here she was certain she must be imagining things -- she thought that he might even look a bit **younger** this morning. His face seemed perhaps a bit more rounded, and when he walked near her Wendy found herself wondering if he were perhaps slightly shorter than when they had danced the previous evening.

_Certainly he is not younger,_ Wendy assured herself firmly, _for that is impossible._ But whether he had grown younger or no, there was no denying that some bit of Peter Pan's indomitable spirit had returned to him, for there within his smile now was a smirk ... just waiting to escape.

Confused at this strange bent of her thoughts, Wendy excused herself to go down to luncheon, leaving Peter to his confinement in a world colored entirely in various shades of pink.

* * *

A short while later, Wendy listlessly pushed mutton cutlets about on her plate, remembering her aunt's constant remonstrances that she not eat more than the smallest amount, lest she appear indelicate.

Dr. Carew, however, followed no such stricture, for he fed plentifully of the meat and vegetables the cook had prepared. "Your house is quite wonderful, Miss Tilney, as is this luncheon. I am truly honored that you have made me so welcome."

Aunt Millicent nearly giggled in delight. It was rare that she had a gentleman to luncheon. In fact, perhaps, this might be the first time such a thing had happened.

"Oh, Dr. Carew, it is my pleasure." And then, with a considering look which she would have been horrified to realize was quite obvious upon her features, Aunt Millicent suggested, "Perhaps some evening you and your wife might honor us with your presence at dinner?"

"I am afraid I have no wife, Miss Tilney. I live quite alone," responded Dr. Carew with a charming smile. Wendy did not like his smile. It seemed so ... calculating.

In fact, Wendy found that she did not like Dr. Carew himself, at least upon such short acquaintance. She thought at first that he looked familiar, but then realized that it could only be that he wore the same clothes, the same fastidious hair style, and the same insipid facial expressions as every other gentleman to whom Aunt Millicent had ever introduced her. They all wore the same fashionable mask, and Wendy found them all quite interchangeable ... and nearly invisible as a result.

These thoughts, of course, could not but lead her to think of Peter, for he was so very different. He was honest and open, even when he had been refusing to trust her. He spoke his mind, and when he smiled, his smile was true, rather than a polite contrivance.

"There are so few true ladies of an appropriate age these days," Dr. Carew mused. "You are a rare woman, Miss Tilney. Rare indeed!"

Blushing only so much as might be considered appropriate, Aunt Millicent responded, "Oh, yes, these women in London now are so very frightful! Storming Parliament, for goodness sakes! Demanding the vote! Why should a proper lady need the vote? Politics have always been a man's domain, and such matters are best left to well-informed gentlemen."

Wendy glared at her plate, gritting her teeth. Aunt Millicent knew how Wendy disagreed with her on the subject of the suffragettes, but raising an objection at luncheon in front of a guest would earn her such disapproval that Aunt Millicent might even insist that Peter leave. Wendy determinedly held her tongue, if only to keep Peter safely in their home. She knew Aunt Millicent would leap at any excuse.

"But you, Miss Tilney," spoke Dr. Carew in his charming voice, "you are a true lady. It is clear in everything you do. I applaud you in this age of confusion."

Aunt Millicent's hand flew to her throat as she smiled in her best attempt at flirtation. "I do my best, Dr. Carew. I wish to instruct my niece in the lessons of my own youth, that she might escape the influences of this profligate time."

"Indeed. A young lady in this day needs protection if she is to grow up properly. Heavens, one need only look at the proliferation of the infernal motor cars in London today to see how much our dear city and country are changing. There is no respect for tradition and convention anymore."

"In fact," pointed out Aunt Millicent, doing her best to smile a coquettish smile, "we should never have met were it not for the danger of motor cars."

"Ah, yes. For the street crush had been caused by a motor car frightening the horses. I had quite forgotten."

"It was a lucky happenstance for us, I dare say," smiled Aunt Millicent. Wendy wanted to groan in embarrassment for her aunt's obvious interest in the doctor, but she instead poked her mutton cutlet with a particularly savage jab of her fork.

"I do not believe in happenstance," claimed Dr. Carew. "I do not believe in coincidence or chance, but I do believe in providence. I believe that we four people came together on that evening not by accident but by design. If that young fellow had not pulled Miss Darling from your carriage, your voices would not have risen to demand my assistance, and I should not have left my own carriage to come to her rescue."

Wendy opened her mouth to object most insistently that Peter had **not** pulled her from the carriage and that she had needed **no** high-handed rescue, but Aunt Millicent caught her eye and frowned deeply, shaking her head only the slightest amount. But Wendy received the warning message, and clenched her jaw most unbecomingly, glaring down at the food she was not supposed to eat.

Looking back toward Dr. Carew, Aunt Millicent agreed with a smile, "Yes, we would most likely never have met."

Nodding, Dr. Carew leaned forward with a sparkle in his charming blue eyes and said intently, "Some might call it God. Some might call it magic. But whatever it is, I do believe that some force guides our paths. And that it has guided us together."

Aunt Millicent, it must be admitted, tittered. Wendy dearly wished to put her head down into her hands and groan her dismay, perhaps even bang her forehead upon the table to relieve some of this horrid pent-up frustration, but she instead simply cut off the tiniest possible piece of carrot and put it into her mouth. Aunt Millicent had taught her well to contain her emotions. Wendy would not endanger Peter's welcome here by her own behavior, if she could possibly help it.

As Dr. Carew and Aunt Millicent continued their disgusting flirtation, Wendy turned her eyes to the doorway, beyond which was the stairway, though she could not see it. How she longed to be upstairs with Peter, instead of at this wretched dining table.

She wondered about Dr. Carew's theory of fate, or providence, or magic, thought about the possibility of some force pulling people together. Perhaps that was why she had seen Peter on the street that evening. Perhaps she was **meant** to find him again. She liked the thought, and smiled a secret smile.

Wendy thought fondly of their conversation the previous evening, how excited he had been to hear her stories of their past together, how sweetly they had danced, how earnest he had looked when he said he thought he must have lied about feeling love. Wendy blushed softly at her thoughts.

"I must admit," frowned Dr. Carew as he shook his head slightly, "that I do find it disturbing that Miss Darling has befriended the very ruffian who attacked her!"

"Oh, yes," agreed Aunt Millicent eagerly, "so do I. The poor are horrid! Robbers and thieves, idlers, cheats, and impostors."

"He might be an unhealthy influence on such an impressionable young lady," Dr. Carew warned, ignoring the fact that the young lady in question sat across the table, lost in thought with a soft smile on her face.

"I have worried the same thing," admitted Aunt Millicent, "particularly as the girl has always had a rather florid imagination. I worry that she might be easily influenced."

"Yes, an imagination can be a dangerous thing," mused Dr. Carew. "Novels and stories which might be perfectly safe for one of maturity and refinement can rot the young mind. You would be surprised, Miss Tilney, by what a simple story can do."

"I have exerted every effort to cure my charge of her unhealthy interest in stories. A young lady does not need imagination, and it can only lead to trouble. Trouble such as bringing this young man into our home!"

"He seems healthy upon first examination, but some diseases do not appear until they are so far advanced as to be terribly contagious and deadly."

Aunt Millicent gasped in horror, her hand once more rising to her throat.

"Oh, yes," Dr. Carew continued. "The poor carry so many diseases, Miss Tilney. Cholera, influenza, consumption, typhoid..."

Aunt Millicent went quite pale and repeated fearfully, "Typhoid! And with Wendy in such frail health!"

Nodding sagely, Dr. Carew advised, "If Miss Darling's health is delicate, I would urge you not to keep this young man in your home. In any case, he appears to be sixteen years at least! Quite old enough to go to the workhouse and make a productive contribution to society."

None of the three people sitting at the dining table, most especially not the young lady quite lost in her own pleasant thoughts, noticed a quiet gasp from outside the dining room. None of them saw the young man who sat listening upon the stairs, or his outraged expression upon hearing the word "workhouse".

"The poor are poor," philosophized Dr. Carew, "because they are inferior and prone to laziness. The workhouse is surely the best place for him, Miss Tilney. Of that there is little doubt."

* * *

At length, Wendy was pulled from her daydreams by the two older people rising from their chairs. Aunt Millicent gave Wendy a stern look that seemed to indicate she would be severely reprimanded for her impolite woolgathering during luncheon, and the three retired to the drawing room.

Aunt Millicent gestured to the settee and asked Dr. Carew, "Shall we sit and talk a while?"

But Dr. Carew glanced around curiously. "I'm afraid I have an appointment with another patient this afternoon. Could you tell me the time?"

Glancing at the ornate clock upon the mantle, which was decorated with gold cherubs and fruits, Aunt Millicent exclaimed, "Oh, my! It has gone 2! I had no idea we had talked so long!"

With a smile, Dr. Carew responded, "The conversation was so enjoyable that the time passed far more quickly than I realized. I fear I must leave to see my next patient. But I do thank you for your warm hospitality, Miss Tilney." He turned and bowed to Wendy, adding, "Miss Darling."

Lottie, always anticipating her mistress's needs and desires, appeared to show the good doctor to the door. He paused, of course, at the table in the entryway to take up the small bundle that had been left there for him, lest he be offended at being paid directly like a common tradesman. He, after all, was a gentleman. Unlike Peter Pan.

With a calculating glance back toward the drawing room, and another up the stairs, Dr. Carew stepped out into the newly falling snow and into his waiting carriage.

* * *

After receiving her extensive lecture on the rudeness of inattention when company called, Wendy went up the stairs to the guest room, only to find the door open and the room empty. Harry's clothes lay upon the bed, and Peter's own patched clothes -- though now clean, with thanks to Lottie -- were gone.

With a cry of distress, Wendy ran downstairs to the front door and opened it wide, stepping into the early snow in her thin dress, desperately searching the busy afternoon street for any sign of Peter's tousled head. But he was nowhere to be seen.

Peter was gone.

____________________________________

**Author's Note:** Where has Peter gone? Will Wendy be able to find him again? What will happen when she does? Has Aunt Millicent gone round the bend, just because some guy flirted with her at lunch? And what in the world is Dr. Carew up to?

All questions shall be answered in due time. Some of them, in fact, in the very next chapter!


	5. Squalor and Magic

Peter was not in his usual place on Oxford Street the following afternoon, nor the following day, nor the day after that. After a full week of seeking him there, Wendy realized she must find some alternate way to search for him.

Remembering that Peter had mentioned the names of two of his friends on the streets, Wendy began to ask after a woman named "Old Hettie" and a man named "Big George." But the people with whom she spoke seemed fearful and resentful of her presence among them, eyeing her finely-tailored dresses and stylish hats with suspicious eyes.

After speaking to a great many people on a great many different days, Wendy at last met an elderly woman on Oxford Street who admitted to being called "Old Hettie." She had few teeth, what few she had were dark with rot, and she wore a dress that was little more than a collection of rags. Her gray hair stuck out in odd tangled tufts in all directions, and she wore no hat, despite the wintry cold. She coughed and spat occasionally into a handkerchief of a color one might have described as "dirt."

"I'm Ol' Hettie, I am, Miss. What c'n I do fer ya, foin lady like ya? Don't want no trouble!"

"No, of course not, Miss ... er ... Hettie."

"Jus' 'Hettie', lass. Or Ol' Hettie, tha's fine, too."

"I'm looking for a boy, Hettie. A friend of mine. His name is Peter. He's about this tall" -- and here Wendy held her hand several inches above her own head -- "and he has light brown hair, and blue eyes with green and gray flecks in them, like the sea. I simply must find him, Hettie! I simply must." Realizing that she had been wringing her hands as she spoke, Wendy self-consciously smoothed down her skirt and tried to regain her composure. Finding Old Hettie after nearly three weeks of searching was rather difficult on her nerves.

Old Hettie coughed into her handkerchief and then eyed Wendy cautiously, looking her up and down as if she were appraising a horse. "Whachoo wan'im for, then?"

"Pardon?" asked Wendy.

"What you want 'im for, our Peter?"

Wendy began unconsciously wringing her hands once more. Aunt Millicent would have been appalled. "He ran away, you see. I'm not sure why, but I simply must find him."

Shaking her head, Old Hettie replied, "Oh, 'e left a ways back, 'e did. Said somebody 'as tryin' ta put 'im in da spoik."

"Spike?" asked Wendy in some confusion.

"Aye, the spoik. The workhouse, Miss. The spoik."

"I assure you, Hettie, that I am not trying to put Peter in the ... the spike ... or the workhouse ... or anything bad. I just must find him. I'm afraid of what will happen to him if I don't!"

Leaning her head back a bit, turning her head, and looking at Wendy out of the corner of her eye, Old Hettie asked suddenly, "W'd you be the Wendy lass 'e talked 'bout?"

Smiling a bright, sudden, relieved smile, Wendy cried, "Yes! I'm Wendy! He talked of me?"

With a sly smile, Old Hettie admitted, "Aye. 'e loiks you, 'e does. 'a's for certain."

"Oh, please, Hettie! Where might I find him?"

But instead of answering her, Old Hettie called out into the shadows of a stairway not far from where they stood. "Big George!" she shouted coarsely. "Big George!" This seemed to start the old lady coughing once more.

A very tall, very broad man with a quite remarkably large belly emerged out of the darkness. He had a quite impressive black beard, though his black hair was cropped close on his head. His clothes were of poor quality, but they were well-mended and fairly clean. He wore an apron, which seemed to indicate he worked at a trade of some sort.

"What you shoutin' about, then, Ol' Hettie?" he growled in a rumbling deep voice.

"This 'ere lady's lookin' for our Peter. You remember where 'e said 'e was goin'? East End, I think it 'as, but I don' remember more partic'larly." Old Hettie scratched her head, and Wendy found herself rather uncharitably wondering if the kindly old woman had lice. She refused to take a step away, however, lest she give offense.

The man who was apparently Peter's friend "Big George" rubbed his belly thoughtfully. "Di'n' he say Whitechapel? I remember 'cause o' the Ripper."*

"Whitechapel?" Wendy could barely contain her excitement at receiving some information after so much searching. "Did he say where in Whitechapel?"

Big George shook his head, "I don' rightly remember, Miss. Ya might look near the station, though, f'r my wife lived near there when she 'as a girl. Might've mentioned it to the lad. 'Fraid I don' remember more'n that." With no more formal good-bye, Big George simply turned around and walked back into the darkness of the stairway. Wendy could hear his heavy footfalls rising upward and away.

Old Hettie smiled her toothless grin and reached out a hand to touch Wendy's arm. "Shore been an honor meetin' ya, Miss. I do hope ya find yer lad. 'e's shore sweet on ya." And with a broad wink, Old Hettie gave a rather awkward curtsy and walked down a narrow alleyway and out of Wendy's sight.

"Whitechapel," Wendy murmured to herself. "Near the station." Nodding with determination, she stepped to the street and hailed a cab.

* * *

Unfortunately, three weeks later, Wendy had still not located Peter. She had ridden to Whitechapel every day after school and looked simply **everywhere** in that area's narrowly winding streets. She had scoured the area surrounding the station, alighting from her carriage frequently to walk where she might speak with the people who crowded the sidewalks.

Whitechapel was quite like a different London entirely from Bloomsbury and St. John's Wood. Smoke from the chimneys formed a sort of black drizzle when it met the rain and snow, washing black flakes down upon Wendy's hat and dress. She was never more grateful for Lottie's laundering discretion than she had been since beginning her visits to Whitechapel.

Everywhere there were people, so very many people, all in such a small space, as if they were living quite on top of one another, and so many of them visibly ill, so many huddled barely clothed upon the street, their heads hanging low as they shook with the cold. She saw barefoot children who looked no more than five years old, begging in the street or aggressively selling matches and lozenges in the snow.

Whitechapel seemed to her almost like a wilderness, a dark and mysterious wilderness filled with dangers with which Wendy had no acquaintance. Everything there seemed somehow helpless, hopeless, unrelieved, and dirty.

Every afternoon that she was in Whitechapel, Wendy worried more for Peter, who had no warm home to return to each night as she had.

What Wendy did not know, however, was that she had an observer. From shadows not only in Whitechapel but also upon occasion in St. John's Wood, the boy she sought often watched her, dazzled by her beauty and her kindness in seeking him. But he would not put himself once more in the power of Wendy's aunt and that infernal doctor -- he would **not** go to the workhouse -- and so he watched in silence, wishing with the brave part of his heart that Wendy would simply forget him and be happy, away from all this squalor and disease.

But wishing also, with the more selfish part of his heart, if truth be told, that Wendy would find him.

* * *

After her visit to Whitechapel one afternoon, Wendy arrived home somewhat later than usual. She had seen a boy with tousled light brown hair, and had chased him for several blocks before getting near enough to see that it was not Peter. She was tired and dirty and discouraged, and the last thing she wanted to see as she came in the front door was Aunt Millicent standing in the entryway with her arms crossed and a frown on her face.

"**Miss** Wendy Darling," Aunt Millicent began, and Wendy knew that this was going to be quite horrible, even only from that beginning, "I should like to know where you have been this afternoon." Striding into the sitting room and seating herself upon the divan, Aunt Millicent watched Wendy with raised eyebrows and her very sourest sour-lemon mouth.

Wendy walked slowly to the chair opposite the divan and sat nervously upon the edge. "I was helping Kitty Eliot with her embroidery," Wendy quietly repeated the lie she had been depending upon for these past several weeks.

Aunt Millicent tilted her head like a strange and curious bird, and then said sharply, "You will never guess whom I met at Selfridge's today."

Her heart sinking in her chest, Wendy answered dully, "Mrs. Eliot?"

With a smile that was in no true way a smile, Aunt Millicent replied, "And her lovely daughter Kitty! Strangely enough, neither of them seemed familiar with your after-class embroidery project of these past months."

"Aunt, I can explain!" Wendy cried, moving forward and once more wringing her guiltily-dirty gloved hands together.

"I do not wish to **hear** any explanations, Wendy Darling. You are leaving school as of today, and you will from **this** day forward be instructed only here in my own home, where I can see for **myself** that you are behaving as befits a proper young lady."

"Leaving school?" gasped Wendy. "But I was to finish out the year!"

Shaking her carefully coifed head, Aunt Millicent stated flatly, "Your school days are done, Wendy Darling, and you have only yourself to blame. Tomorrow, you shall instead spend the day with **me**."

At this, Aunt Millicent stood and strode stiffly from the room. She paused, however, in the doorway, her back to Wendy, and enunciated clearly, "And you shall **bathe** and change into less ... **soiled** garments **immediately**." She then left the room, thereby also leaving Wendy to her grief.

No school! No more reading! And no way to search for Peter any longer! Removing her soiled gloves with tears in her eyes, Wendy sunk her face into her also rather dirty hands and wept.

* * *

The following weeks were more of a nightmare than any hardship Wendy had observed in Whitechapel, for they included a very suspicious and angry Aunt Millicent watching her at nearly every moment.

Wendy had made them both potentially the target of gossip with her lies, and Aunt Millicent was quite determined that she learn the error of her ways.

They spent their days in the sitting room, or occasionally the drawing room, both thickly curtained and with little movement of the air. It was rather like living in a lavishly decorated cave.

Wendy played the piano, sewed embroidery upon gloves and handkerchiefs and a scarves, worked tapestries, accompanied her aunt on her social visits with frightfully boring people, and silently did everything she was bid to do ... but always in her heart she was worrying for Peter, wondering where he was and whether he was well, and many a private tear was shed into her needlework and onto the keys of Aunt Millicent's handsome piano.

* * *

On the day when Aunt Millicent instructed her niece to dress for visiting the Crawfords, Wendy had no idea that she was soon to be once more touched by fate ... or providence ... or magic ... or whatever it might truly be. Let us call it Magic, and be done.

Wendy and Aunt Millicent departed the house wearing their finest visiting clothes, for the Crawfords were a rather prominent family. Wendy wore her new white bonnet, which complimented her skin and hair quite well, and to all outward appearances she was like any other young lady abroad in London that day. Anyone would have thought the stiffness of her back due only to propriety and good posture, and never suspected the strength of will she exerted at every moment to keep herself from simply screaming and running away, or collapsing in hopeless tears.

One observer, however, saw what the others did not. He saw her struggle and her grief, and he longed to do something -- he was not sure what -- to help, to see her smile once more.

But the ladies knew not that they were watched, and, in their carriage, they did not converse. Aunt Millicent had insisted that Wendy continue to practice her conversation at home occasionally, but aunt and niece were still currently too much at odds to engage in friendly exchanges without prior arrangement. They saved their polite conversation for the Crawfords.

When they arrived at their destination, Miss Elizabeth Crawford surprised them by expressing a wish to walk in the park which lay just across the street. With an ingratiating smile, Aunt Millicent assured both Miss Elizabeth Crawford and her elegant mother that they would be delighted to walk, as the weather was slightly warmer today than in the weeks previous.

It was as the group of four well-dressed ladies began their crossing of the street that Magic once more took a hand, for though they espied the motor car that came suddenly 'round the corner, they found that Wendy and Miss Elizabeth, the two walking in front, were directly in the auto's path, with no remedy in sight. All four ladies cried out in horror.

Suddenly, the two endangered young ladies found themselves pushed forcefully forward, landing rather ungracefully upon hands and knees in their fine dresses, turning with stunned expressions to see the horrible sight that lay behind them.

There, in the street, bloodied and not moving, was Peter Pan.

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* The Jack the Ripper murders occurred in the Whitechapel area of London in 1888.


	6. At the Hospital

**Author's Notes:** Thank you to all who have reviewed! You've given me so much encouragement, you wouldn't even believe it. I was pretty concerned that this story wouldn't appeal to people, because it's so Edwardian, includes so many big words, and even has some early chapters that barely feature Peter at all. It's been wonderful to find that some people are really enjoying it and not getting bored with my multi-syllabic ramblings. I was feeling a bit discouraged when I went a day or so without any reviews, but now I'm cheerfully writing again. So thank you. :)

Oh, and if you want an idea of how obsessive I am in writing this fic, I can tell you that when I went to see the film again today, I sat there in the dark **scribbling notes** on the ideas I was getting as I watched. Obviously, I need a life. :)

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The doctors said it was a miracle the young man had not been killed.

Miss Millicent Tilney and Mrs. Lydia Crawford said it was a miracle that he had been there at all. "One moment," Aunt Millicent marveled, "he was not there, and the next moment he **was**, darting forward so bravely to save our lovely girls from certain death!"

Aunt Millicent and the Crawfords had become rather enamored of gallant Peter, now that he had so publicly and dramatically proven himself romantically heroic. Aunt Millicent, in particular, with her weakness for melodramatic novels, found the boy now perfectly wonderful.

Aunt Millicent was not, after all, a wicked woman, but only sometimes misguided in her attempts to do what was best for her niece. In truth, she wished only to ensure that Wendy would not live the lonely spinster's life that she herself had lived. She wished above all things to see Wendy well married and happy. If she upon occasion treated Wendy too strictly or harshly, it was only toward this end, for she cared for her niece deeply, in her own way.

And though, if she had thought upon it in more depth, she might have worried that Wendy's attachment to young Peter might harm the girl's chances of marrying well, in truth Aunt Millicent was instead so carried away by the drama of the situation that she gave Wendy leave to visit Peter in the hospital as often as she liked ... particularly since Miss Elizabeth Crawford had taken to visiting him frequently, and there could certainly be no harm in anything that Miss Elizabeth Crawford chose to do.

In any case, concern for the boy had, through the Crawfords' attention, become quite fashionable.

* * *

And so Wendy visited the hospital every day, sitting by Peter's bedside from 2 until 5 each afternoon. Peter had been quite badly injured, and so the doctors did not yet know how long he would need remain with them. His left leg was encased in plaster, the top of his head was thoroughly wrapped in bandages, and the doctors also believed that there might be various additional injuries hidden within Peter's body, where they could not see without surgery.

The very worst, however, was the fact that Peter had not wakened since the accident. The doctors had given him injections of morphine to relieve the pain he must surely be experiencing, even in his unnatural slumber, but Wendy worried desperately by his bedside each day, waiting for him to open those sea-blue eyes she had spent so much time seeking in Oxford Street and Whitechapel.

After his thorough scrubbing by the nurses -- which was quite necessary to determine the extent of his injuries, since bruises were in many places difficult to distinguish from dirt --Peter looked quite sweetly innocent, with blankets pulled up to his chin and his face relaxed. He lay silently, eyes closed, eyelashes motionless, like a sleeping prince who had been struck down by some mysterious spell.

When Wendy was quite sure that the hospital room was empty and that no one stood at the doorway, she once even leaned over to softly press her lips to Peter's, but he did not wake with her kiss.

Peter slept on.

And while he slept, Wendy continued to tell him stories. She often held his hand, and talked until her throat was sore and she coughed most distressingly. She told him the same stories over and over again, knowing that he would not mind, since the stories were all about him.

"Once upon a time," she would say, leaning close to his ear, so that none of the hospital staff would hear her tales. "Once upon a time, there was a boy who decided not to grow up..."

* * *

As has been mentioned, however, Wendy was not Peter's only regular visitor. The very elegant Miss Elizabeth Crawford -- dressed in the very latest of fashions from Paris -- visited Peter nearly every day, as well, often moving her chair quite close to his bed and proprietarily holding his hand in her hers.

It must be admitted that Peter now cut quite the handsome figure, even sleeping as he was upon his hospital bed. His blond-streaked brown hair was now clean and smooth, and his face now clearly visible after emerging from beneath his ragged cloth cap and several layers of the East End's infamous chimney soot. Peter, Miss Elizabeth Crawford had realized, was quite handsome indeed!

Miss Elizabeth Crawford, however, was not particularly handsome. Her pale red hair, freckles, and thick waist were all excessively unfashionable. Luckily, Wendy's own faint youthful freckles had faded as she grew, but Miss Elizabeth Crawford had had no such luck, and her face somewhat resembled the Neverland's starry sky, save with freckles in the place of stars.

In her petulant hospital bedside ruminations on the unattractiveness of Miss Elizabeth Crawford as that most unattractive of ladies held on to Peter's hand as if she had a right to do so, Wendy decided that most hideous of all Miss Elizabeth Crawford's flaws was that she was decidedly **silly**.

Wendy amused herself by imagining Miss Elizabeth Crawford facing various Neverland situations. _Captured by the Indian warriors! Oh, she would certainly be dead. Most likely scalped and dead. Kidnapped by Captain Hook! Gutted and dead. A midnight encounter with the mermaids! Drowned and dead. A hapless fall from the Neverland sky, aimed straight into the mouth of the volcano! Oh so unfortunately smashed, melted, and **dead**!_

And if Miss Elizabeth Crawford ever wondered at the sly smiles that sometimes flirted upon Miss Wendy Darling's lips while they both attended Peter's bedside, she certainly never inquired.

* * *

For his part, when Peter at long last woke from his unconscious state, he did not even notice Miss Elizabeth Crawford's freckled, silly, certainly-dead-in-Neverland existence, despite the fact that the lady in question had a rather tenacious hold upon his right hand at the time.

"Wendy?" he murmured as his eyes opened groggily. Miss Elizabeth Crawford reluctantly released her hold upon his hand and moved further from the bed as Wendy eagerly approached to sit upon the chair close beside the bed.

"Peter?" Wendy replied, her heart beating so loud she thought surely people must hear it for miles 'round. "Peter?" And now Wendy took Peter's hand within her own, and felt somehow that her own grasp was right, whereas Miss Elizabeth Crawford's had been so very very wrong.

"Wendy," Peter mumbled as if still dazed with his long slumber, "I saw you ... in front of ... the car ... I had to save you." And here he squeezed Wendy's hand weakly, his eyelashes still fluttering as he said quietly, almost in a whisper, "You'll think ... I'm crazy ... but ... Wendy ... it felt ... it felt ... like I **flew**..."

At this, Wendy smiled an awed and joyous smile, which Peter misconstrued immediately, even with his gaze as sleepy as it was.

"Laughing at me," he fretted, closing his tired eyes entirely once more.

Wendy pressed his hand between the both of hers and smiled the happiest smile she had smiled in a very long time, whispering close to his ear, so that Miss Elizabeth Crawford would not hear, "I am not laughing at you, Peter. I ... I believe you. I think you **were** flying, and the thought makes me so very happy." She leaned to kiss him softly upon his cheek, and Peter turned to look at her, sleepy uncertainty in his eyes. A long moment later, he smiled a small, smug smile, as if they shared some particularly marvelous secret together.

When Wendy looked up once more, she saw that the elegant Miss Elizabeth Crawford had gone.

* * *

Wendy's visits to Peter's hospital room became no more brief after his awakening, but nor did they become **longer** in duration, either. For Aunt Millicent still required much of her niece, not only in the way of needlework and piano playing, but also in the practice of conversation, for which Aunt Millicent had decided that luncheons with Dr. Carew were an excellent solution.

Dr. Carew was now invited to Miss Millicent Tilney's home for luncheon twice weekly and had become quite comfortable with the two ladies in residence.

Wendy, however, continued to loathe him, most particularly for the embarrassingly girlish behavior he inspired in her aunt. He must surely be a decade Aunt Millicent's junior, and yet he behaved as if she might expect him to court her. It was as if Aunt Millicent were being mocked, unknowingly, in her own home, twice weekly.

Wendy found herself sometimes at luncheon imagining Dr. Carew in various Neverland situations. _A hapless fall from the Neverland sky, aimed straight into the mouth of the volcano! Oh so unfortunately smashed, melted, and **dead**!_

If Dr. Carew and Aunt Millicent ever wondered about the sly smile that sometimes flirted upon Wendy's lips during luncheon, they certainly never inquired.

Wendy's dislike became only more intense, however, when he spoke on the subject of Peter.

"Why everyone thinks him a hero, I certainly cannot imagine!" the doctor scoffed, perhaps forgetting that he had first made the acquaintance of this family through similar heroics ... or perhaps not.

Aunt Millicent, not wanting to offend their charming guest, merely offered, "The boy **did** save dear Wendy's life." Wendy, as had become quite usual, received only a sharp glance from her aunt which informed her in no uncertain terms that she was not to offer her own opinion on this particular topic of conversation. Wendy idly wondered if she might grind all of her teeth down to only piles of white dust after a lifetime of such horrid politenesses. She pondered the potential texture of this dust, and found it quite unpleasant. But at least the thoughts had distracted her from the even more unpleasant Dr. Carew.

"Might you be willing to visit the boy in the hospital, Dr. Carew, in order to give your own excellently **expert** medical opinion on his condition?" Aunt Millicent was embarrassing herself again. Wendy winced, but tried not to show it upon her countenance.

"Absolutely not," growled the doctor. Both ladies' eyebrows rose in surprise. "I shall most gladly attend the rascal when he has left the hospital, particularly if he convalesces in your own beautiful home, Miss Tilney, but I shall not visit the hospital." Why should a doctor not wish to go to the hospital? Wendy found this most curious. But the question would most likely be considered rude, perhaps even impertinent. And so she amused herself by pondering potential answers to the question. Her imagination, now that it had been once more stimulated, found itself quite as active as it had ever been in her youth.

_Perhaps Dr. Carew has a deep and illogical fear of hospitals. Perhaps the mere sight of a hospital causes him to sweat and get the vapors!_ The thought made Wendy snicker, if only inside her own mind.__

Perhaps Dr. Carew is truly a villainous mastermind, and knows that some person at the hospital might recognize him!

Perhaps Dr. Carew is not a doctor at all, and fears that any true doctor would expose him as a fraud and impostor!

Perhaps Dr. Carew was once married most unhappily to a nurse, and now finds the sight of their uniforms offensive in the extreme!

Wendy was jolted from her contemplations of this fascinating question by her elders rising from their chairs. Once again, Wendy had eaten nearly nothing. Aunt Millicent would be so pleased. Lottie might be able to lace her corset even more tightly on the morrow. How tightly she could lace the corset if Wendy were but a skeleton, like those at the Black Castle! But her imagination was running away with her, as had been happening frequently of late. She followed her aunt and the odious doctor into the drawing room.

Unfortunately, what she saw in the drawing room was even more terrible than the image of herself as a corset-laced skeleton. It was Aunt Millicent presenting Dr. Carew with a gift, in thanks for his -- entirely unnecessary and quite self-important -- heroics upon their first meeting.

"I had noticed that you carry no pocket watch, Dr. Carew. And knowing how important your appointments are to you, I thought this might prove useful as well as fashionable."

Dr. Carew's face was expressionless as he eyed the brass-cased pocket watch with its attached polished brass chain. "A most appropriate gift, Miss Tilney. And thoughtful, as well. You have my thanks."

Aunt Millicent nearly tittered once more, and so Wendy looked away lest her frustration and disgust show upon her countenance. To be giving gifts to such a man! And he would not even attend Peter in the hospital! And he loathed the suffragettes! He was simply the most horrid man imaginable, and watching her aunt fawn over him in this manner made Wendy very nearly sick to her stomach.

"Aunt," Wendy interrupted quite rudely, if truth be known, "I must leave for the hospital. Might I call for Harry and the carriage?"

Distracted by her own concerns, Aunt Millicent did not reprimand Wendy even by a look. She simply smiled graciously, as if in a performance for her male guest, and told Wendy that she might indeed go.

And so Wendy left for the hospital, which was, rather oddly, so much more pleasant than home.

* * *

Now that he was awake, Peter had been experiencing sharp pains from within his abdomen, but when he discovered that the doctors thought they might perhaps need to perform surgery to investigate what injuries might be hidden from their view, he ceased complaining of the pain and simply ground his teeth when the doctors and nurses probed that painful area, insisting that the pain was gone. They did not all, perhaps, believe him, but when his stubborn insistence continued, they were forced to reluctantly accept that perhaps the pain had indeed been only transitory.

For the pain of his leg and head, and any other aches that continued, the doctor prescribed injections of morphine, such as had been administered when he was not yet conscious. A wakeful Peter, however, was a much more difficult patient than a sleeping one. Peter did not trust the doctors' needles or their contents, and so insisted that he preferred pain to their "medicine." Again, his insistences were stubborn enough to defeat their prescriptions and advisements. Both doctors and nurses began to anticipate with pleasure the day when Peter Pan would no longer be patient of theirs.

In truth, though the doctors would not have believed it, Peter was beginning to feel slightly better. He knew that it was not the "medicine" or anything else the doctors had offered. It was Wendy. Every story she told him lessened the sharp pain in his abdomen just the slightest bit more. Even the stories he had heard before ... it did not matter. It seemed to be Wendy's telling that mattered.

Wendy told him stories, and Peter's body ... healed. It was happening slowly, but it **was** happening. He felt it, inside. He **knew** it. He didn't know how or why, but he **knew**.

* * *

As Aunt Millicent had a deep and abiding fear of germs and contagion, she did not ever visit Peter during his stay in the hospital.

Wendy's parents, however, came to the young man's bedside to give him their heartfelt thanks for having saved their dear daughter's life. They knew not that he was the same young fellow who had tempted their children away some years before, but even if they had, they might have looked upon him with equal warmth and gratitude. They were, after all, rather kind-hearted folk who loved their children deeply, and who had been much more aware of the depth of that love since those children had gone missing for such a terrible time.

And so Peter somewhat dubiously submitted to having his cheek kissed by Mrs. Mary Darling, and shook hands rather awkwardly with Mr. George Darling, and told them he was quite glad to have saved their daughter, which was of course the truth.

Mr. Darling pressed a card into Peter's hand, stammering, "If there is any way we might help you ... there is no way to repay ... but ... here is my card, Peter. If there is anything we can do to help you ... anything ... please send word."

"Father?" interjected Wendy hopefully. "Peter might find use for some more appropriate clothing, when he leaves the hospital."

Mr. Darling nodded his head sharply, "Of course! Of course." As a bank manager, he loved a quantifiable answer to any question, and having a concrete way to in some small measure repay this young man's brave help was most welcome.

Mrs. Darling asked gently, "Where will Peter be nursed when he leaves the hospital? He might stay with us if he likes." She smiled generously and kindly, wishing only the best for this young man who had kept her daughter safe.

"Mrs. Lydia Crawford and her daughter have offered their home, as Aunt Millicent has offered hers," Wendy said. She would not give details, but she knew that her aunt had been spurred to action by the fact that the Crawford family had paid Peter's hospital bills. She would not be outdone, and so she too had offered a place for Peter's recuperation.

"Well, young man," Mr. Darling rocked forward and back slightly on his feet. "You have three homes to choose from, so which will it be?" Another simple answer. Always a good thing in George Darling's opinion.

Peter was rather dismayed at being so abruptly quizzed, but in actuality the answer was simple, for it had never truly been in question. There was only one person he trusted, for she had proven herself a true friend, searching for him, trying to help him, telling him stories, even trying to help him remember his past. No, the answer had never been in question.

"I wish to be with Wendy," he answered. Though he remained suspicious of Wendy's aunt and the doctor who had suggested sending him to the workhouse, he felt that his current status as wounded hero would most likely give him a period of safety, until he could make his own way again.

Wendy knew that her aunt would be pleased, for she would view this as a social boon, having been chosen above the Crawfords.

And Wendy's parents too were pleased with this answer, for if truth be told their house was rather too crowded with boys already.

The only person, it would seem, who would be displeased with Peter's choice would be the elegant Miss Elizabeth Crawford. _But she,_ Wendy thought to herself with the last faint twinges of foundless jealousy, _can simply jump into a volcano._

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**TBC ...**


	7. Tell Me About Hook

**Author's Note:** Hello again! Let's find out what our poor injured Peter is up to, shall we?

Many thanks, as always, to everyone who has reviewed! It's so nice to know I'm not just talking to myself. :) I keep wanting to answer reviews individually, but instead I've been putting all my energy into writing the story itself. So ... please just know that I really appreciate the feedback, and it definitely helps to keep me writing. :)

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Peter proved to be an even worse patient at home than he'd been in the hospital. Particularly, that is, when Dr. Carew attempted to attend to him a week after the injured young man had been brought to Aunt Millicent's guest room.

"Keep that monster away from me!" Peter shouted most impolitely. "He wants to send me to the workhouse!"

Hands raised placatingly, Dr. Carew had insisted, "You need a doctor to mind your recovery, my young Peter." Patting his bag rather ominously with one hand, he continued, "I can help you, my boy."

"Stay out!" yelled Peter. "Stay out! I'm warning you!"

But Dr. Carew had stubbornly walked forward into the room despite Peter's words, resulting in a large silver candlestick being thrown with impressive accuracy across the room to bounce most inelegantly off of his forehead, leaving an angry red mark in its wake.

Holding a handkerchief to his forehead and cursing under his breath, Dr. Carew descended the stairs to tell Miss Millicent Tilney, "My considered professional opinion is that the boy does not need a doctor's attentions. An attentive nurse should suffice."

* * *

And so it came to pass that Wendy and Lottie were trusted to nurse Peter back to health. Wendy quite happily sat by his bedside as many hours of the day as possible. Aunt Millicent rarely saw the boy herself, sending his meals up on trays and trusting Lottie to act as sufficient chaperone, and so Wendy was free to tell Peter stories many hours each day, without any cautions against the danger of her imagination.

Determined to help him recover his memories, which were still only very vague, where they existed at all, Wendy regaled Peter with story after story about himself and Neverland and their past adventures. She told him of Neverland's high waterfalls and jungles dense with vines, its lagoons peopled with mermaids, its hulking Black Castle all made of crumbling walls and towers and turrets, its volcano continually spewing red molten lava, and the pirate ship the Jolly Roger, moored just off the coast.

She told him of the pirates. Most importantly, Captain Hook, of course, with his long curling black hair, the hook where his hand had been, and his piercing eyes, blue as forget-me-nots. Hook, she explained, liked to dress quite smartly and surround himself with fine things, fancying himself rather a gentleman even as he ruthlessly killed anyone who annoyed him or got in his way. There was also Smee, Hook's second in command, who was rather cowardly if truth be told, with his small wire glasses, his gray beard, his large belly, and his hatred for the ship's parrot who hated him equally much in return. And then there was Noodler, with his hands on backwards, who seemed rather charmingly innocent in his love of card-playing and stories, despite being a bloodthirsty pirate. And Bill Jukes, every inch of him tattooed, who merrily rode the complex contraption which played Peter's "Requiem Mass" at the Black Castle. And one must not forget Alf Mason, so ugly his mother had traded him for a bottle of muscat.

Peter noticed that his wounds continued to heal, continuing to respond to the stories in strange and mysterious ways. The sharp pain inside his middle slowly became less bothersome, the throbbing of his leg lessened slightly, and the terrible ache in his head gradually faded somewhat, as well.

He was still decidedly uncomfortable and driven quite mad by being so little able to move about, but Wendy's stories moved and twisted and unfurled within him such that he somehow knew that all would be well if he only listened long enough.

And it was not only his body that was healing. He was gradually beginning to remember.

* * *

Unfortunately, Wendy was not able to spend all of her time in Peter's room. Though he was not attending Peter's injuries, Dr. Carew still dined with them frequently at luncheon as a purely social visit.

Wendy was not only forced to dine politely with the horrible man, she was also upon occasion required to play the piano for Dr. Carew and Aunt Millicent in the drawing room when the meal was finished, while the doctor complimented Aunt Millicent on her niece's accomplishment in the musical arts. Wendy had a slight cold, and her coughing would upon occasion interrupt her playing, much to her aunt's disapproval. Illness was so very impolite, after all.

On some days, Aunt Millicent gave Wendy the freedom to take her luncheon upstairs in the guest room with Peter, but Wendy rather feared this kindness was only in an effort to spend time alone with the handsome doctor.

In fact, Aunt Millicent's infatuation with the doctor had seemed to grow only more intense with time. In fact, when Dr. Carew grew a rather dashing beard and mustache, Aunt Millicent complimented him quite embarrassingly much, such that Wendy was quite ashamed for her.

Wendy, however, found that with this new beard and mustache, the doctor seemed even more familiar. When dining at the table with him, she tried to examine his face as closely as possible without drawing attention or seeming rude. At length, unable to decide why he looked so very familiar, she decided that she must have at some point seen his face -- or one remarkably like it -- in some very different setting, which change of circumstance might make him more difficult to place.

And, in any case, the doctor's face seemed far less important than Peter's injuries and lack of memory. And so, unfortunately, Wendy devoted less time to the problem than she might have.

* * *

"Tell me about how I killed Hook!" demanded Peter one morning after his breakfast.

Wendy grinned with surprise. "Why, Peter, you sound quite cheeky this morning! What happened to the hesitant fellow I met on Oxford Street so many weeks -- nay **months** -- ago?"

"Hesitant? Me?" Peter scoffed, for indeed, much of his youthful attitude had been returning to him along with his health and memories. "You must have been imagining things."

Rubbing his head -- for it did still ache rather atrociously upon occasion, as did his leg -- Peter repeated, "Tell me how I killed Hook!"

"Well," Wendy said ironically, "since you asked so **nicely**..." but Peter was completely immune to her tone, and simply sat up eagerly in his bed, waiting for the tale to begin.

"Well, you see, Hook had captured myself and the boys, and he wanted to know how you had taught me to fly."

"How **did** I teach you?" Peter asked, though he already knew the answer, because Wendy had told this story before. And, in any case, he had begun to remember some of it, if only vaguely.

In truth, he just wanted to hear it again, as Wendy told it.

"I said only that you think happy thoughts and they lift you into the air, but he wanted to know the rest, and so his hook was at my throat and my smallest brother Michael was frightened in the extreme that I might be killed. 'Fairy dust!' he cried. 'You need fairy dust!' Hook wanted to find out if unhappy thoughts would make you unable to fly, and so he shouted, 'How if his Wendy walks the plank!' Oh, Peter, I was so very frightened! But I did not weep or cry out. And when I at last fell from the plank, you caught me!"

"Of course I caught you!" Peter bragged.

"Yes, Peter, of course you did. But then Hook caught hold of Tinker Bell and sprinkled her dust upon him and just the thought of killing you was enough to send him soaring up into the air! And so the two of you flew all 'round the ship, clashing swords with a mighty clanging, over and over again. You spun and soared and it was really quite amazing!"

"That's me!" Peter grinned, making Wendy laugh.

"But then Hook somehow brought you down, and sent you crashing to the deck!"

"How?" asked Peter. Wendy was never able to answer this question, but he always asked, on the off chance that this time she would know. He had not been able to remember this part, himself.

"I'm afraid I don't know, Peter. You never told me, and I was rather occupied in a sword fight with another pirate at the time, so I did not hear."

Nodding with disappointed acceptance, Peter asked, "So what happened next?"

"Well, you were on the deck, Peter, and you weren't even moving! You just lay there, and Hook raised up his arm, and his eyes began to glow red, and at the last moment I broke free from the pirate who held me prisoner, and I grabbed his arm, the one with the hook attached, and stopped him. But then he threw me to the deck beside you. And I ... I kissed you. And ... then there was the most wonderful explosion and the pirates were blown into the air and the sea, and you flew again, and fought Captain Hook so gallantly, until he became horribly discouraged, quite losing the ability to fly, and at last was swallowed whole by the crocodile."

"You kissed me?"

"Yes, Peter, I did." Wendy blushed slightly at discussing this so frankly.

"I wish I could remember that part," Peter said pensively.

"Well," Wendy was blushing a bit more now, "I'm sure you will remember everything eventually. You've already remembered much more than you did when I first saw you on Oxford Street."

Peter nodded absently, apparently deep in thought.

"Wendy, I think you should kiss me now."

"What?" gasped Wendy, shocked by this sudden pronouncement.

"It helped before, so maybe it will help now, too. Maybe I would be completely healthy and have all of my memories if you kissed me again."

Thinking back on when she had kissed him while he was still unconscious, Wendy admitted apologetically, "I do not think that would work, Peter."

"Well, where is the harm in trying?" Peter's smug grin clearly said that he was certain he had won the argument.

Shaking her head slightly at Peter's recovered arrogance, Wendy could not help but smile. Though somewhat grown-up, he was so much like the Peter she had first known!

Glancing first back at the doorway to be sure they were unobserved, even by Lottie, Wendy then leaned accommodatingly closer to the bed, and Peter raised his face toward hers, his lashes fluttering closed as their faces drew near together. Their mouths met gently, her lips soft against his, both their eyes closed, her hand resting lightly upon his arm, Peter's hand reaching up to lay flat against her cheek.

The kiss lasted a long moment, and then Wendy pulled away, blushing in her chair beside the bed.

"Well?" she asked shyly. "Do you feel any different?"

Peter frowned in thought, paying attention to each part of his body in turn. "I feel sort of ... tingly ... and ... maybe a little warm. Do you think that means anything?"

Wendy blushed more deeply, for she felt a bit tingly and warm, herself. "I don't think so, Peter. I'm afraid it will still take you some time to heal."

Putting his hands behind his head and reclining back upon his pillow, Peter reasoned, "Well, it was worth trying." _Maybe it needs to be done more than once, in order to heal me,_ Peter thought to himself. But he wasn't going to ask again. Let Wendy ask next time. In any case, he was still pleased to have gotten his way in getting Wendy to kiss him.

Staring up at the ceiling, Peter thought that this kissing thing might be nice again, even if it didn't heal him, but he certainly wouldn't say so to Wendy.

* * *

Several days later, after Wendy had coughed for the third time during luncheon, Dr. Carew turned his shrewd blue eyes in her direction, commenting, "You should let me examine you, Miss Darling, for that cough."

Not wanting this man near her any more than absolutely necessary, Wendy assured him with a polite smile, "Thank you for your concern, Dr. Carew, but it is only a cold."

"One cannot be too careful with such things, Miss Darling. Be sure to have no fire in your room tonight, and stand about a while in evening dress with the windows closed. That should help the cough to clear. If it has not dissipated within the next week, you really should submit to an examination."

Gritting her teeth, as was so often the case in the doctor's company, Wendy smiled stiffly.

Before she had chance to answer, however, Aunt Millicent declared, "Oh, we should be so very grateful to you, Dr. Carew. It is so kind of you to be concerned of Wendy's delicate health! Perhaps we should set an appointment for Thursday afternoon, lest your schedule become filled?" Since Thursday was one of the days when Dr. Carew did not as a rule come to luncheon, Wendy knew that this was merely a ploy to bring the man into the house an additional day of the week.

But, being a polite young lady and unwilling to shame her aunt before company, Wendy did not object, and only smiled silently, betraying no visible indication of the decidedly unfriendly thoughts within her head.

When they stood to adjourn to the drawing room, where Wendy would no doubt be pressed to play the piano for their enjoyment, Aunt Millicent noticed the front of Dr. Carew's vest, and its lack of watch chain.

"Dr. Carew," she began in some confusion and concern, "you do not wear the watch I gave you as a gift. Has it been lost or broken?" Wendy had, in fact, noticed that the doctor had never worn the watch in her sight, and had wondered at the reason.

Hesitating a moment, Dr. Carew replied, "I rarely have need of a watch, Miss Tilney. It was an exceedingly thoughtful gesture, and very much appreciated, but I simply prefer not to carry a watch. It is something of a ... personal eccentricity, you might say."

In truth, the watch had been smashed and discarded with the rubbish on the very day it had been given him, but Aunt Millicent and Wendy had no way of knowing this, and it would have been exceedingly rude of Dr. Carew to say so. It was, in fact, exceedingly rude of him to have even **done** so, whether he admitted it or no.

Aunt Millicent, however, had no need to know the full extent of Dr. Carew's ingratitude. His purposeful failure to wear the watch was, in and of itself, a grave slight to her. She had given him a token of her affection, perhaps rashly, perhaps imprudently, and he had spurned it. If he thought kindly of her at all, he would have worn it simply to honor her thought in giving it to him.

Of a sudden, Aunt Millicent found herself questioning Dr. Carew's debonair charm, suddenly wondering whether she had been embarrassing herself in believing that such a young and handsome man might enjoy her company. Had she made herself ridiculous, in believing that some gentleman might at last court her? Had she become the topic of gossip? Had she made quite a fool of herself?

"I am afraid I have a prior engagement this afternoon," Aunt Millicent lied stiffly, her mind racing and her heart aching rather sore. "We shall not have the time to enjoy Wendy's lovely piano playing today."

Dr. Carew knew when he was being asked to leave, and so he began his way to the door. "I shall see you both on Thursday next, to examine Miss Darling's health," he smiled, knowing that his hold on the elderly spinster had most likely slipped, but determined to make every effort to regain his grasp.

After he had been ushered from the house with every false politeness, Dr. Carew stood beside his carriage and looked back at the closed door, and then up at the window, and as he looked his eyes, blue as forget-me-nots, glinted with a ruthlessness which, had she seen it, would have made Aunt Millicent's blood run cold in her veins.

And if Wendy had seen it, she would have at last realized where she had encountered this face before.

* * *

Once Dr. Carew had gone, Aunt Millicent silently retired to her own private bedchamber to be alone with her forlornly disappointed thoughts, and to weep -- if truth be known -- more than a few lonely spinster's tears.

Wendy, not knowing the extent of her aunt's current emotions, quite cheerfully went up to Peter's room, glad that the unpleasant part of her day was finished, and she might now look forward to spending the afternoon and evening with Peter.

She had not expected, however, that Peter would cry out when he saw her, coming quite near to climbing -- or perhaps falling -- out of the bed, even with his leg encased in plaster. "Wendy!" he cried.

Wendy ran to the bed, taking Peter in her arms and asking frantically, "What is wrong, Peter?"

"I remember!" Peter looked into her face, and his eyes were shining with unshed tears. "I remembered what happened to Neverland, Wendy." His words flew so quickly that Wendy almost had difficulty understanding him, but she watched his face anxiously as he spoke.

"I remember," Peter moaned piteously, "I remember ... Neverland **died**, Wendy. I don't know why, and I don't understand how, but ... it ... it ... it died. Neverland **died**." And at that, his tears slipped from his eyes, sliding down his cheeks, and Peter buried his face in Wendy's shoulder, and she held him as he wept.

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**Author's Closing Note:** Fear not! Some good, happy things happen in the next chapter! There's still plenty of danger and drama to come, too, but it's not **all** near-death experiences. :)


	8. On the Subject of Neverland

**Author's Note:** Okay, here's a warning in advance. One of the genres listed for this story is "Angst" ... and this story is going to earn that label, if it hasn't already. There'll be some happy stuff, too, but you may as well go ahead and fasten your seatbelts, because it's going to be a very bumpy ride.

Many many thanks to those who have reviewed, as always. I'd like to particularly thank squeezynz and Mara Trinity Scully for their consistent encouragement and feedback. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Or maybe that's just my bathrobe. :)

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"The mermaids went first," Peter explained, once he had calmed enough to speak and had dashed the tears from his face. Wendy sat beside him, on the edge of the bed, for he seemed to find her nearness a comfort.

"One day I went to call them with my pipes, and they didn't come. I thought they were only teasing me, but ... then ... the waterfall stopped. One day it was just ... gone. I can't explain it. And then the Black Castle ... and then the volcano ... and then one day the Jolly Roger was gone. I didn't see it set sail ... it was just ... gone."

Wendy listened with confusion and horror to Peter's halting tale. How could Neverland have been destroyed? What could possibly have the power to **kill** Neverland?

"Then the fairies went," Peter continued, and tears were welling in his eyes once more. "One day, Tink was just gone. All of the rest of the fairies, too. They left no sign that they had ever been there. Tink didn't even say good-bye." Peter sniffed, embarrassed to let Wendy see him cry, but still hurt at the loss of his closest friend.

"The Indians were gone, too. I'm not sure when they disappeared. They just weren't there when I went looking for them. I was all alone. And then ... one day ... I fell asleep in my tree ... and I woke up ... in Kensington Gardens. I couldn't remember anything, and I didn't know what to do."

Wendy stroked a hand through Peter's hair, wanting to give him comfort somehow, now that he had remembered such distressing events, even while she herself was yet trying to catch her own racing thoughts.

"I didn't know what to do, Wendy. I didn't know how to get food, or where to live, or anything. I was so scared!" Peter shook his head with shame at the memory.

"Of course you didn't know, Peter!" Wendy reassured him. "You had no way to know. You had been in Neverland so very long that you had forgotten."

"I did **not** forget!" insisted Peter, though he knew that he had. Admitting such a thing hurt his pride, and so he found himself lying instinctively.

Hearing the defensiveness in his voice, Wendy soothed, "Of course not, Peter. But it wasn't your fault." She tried to think of something that might make him feel better, wondering how she might appeal to his arrogance, how appease his injured pride. "Most boys would not have survived the night!"

Peter lifted his chin slightly, his cheeks still marked by tears. "It was an awfully great adventure," he said tentatively. In truth, it had not felt great at all, but it sounded far better than admitting how cold and frightened and lonely he had been.

"I'm sure it was, Peter," Wendy stroked his hair once more, finally understanding in some small way how Peter had come to be in the state in which she had found him on Oxford Street. Poor Peter! Stranded in London with no understanding of how to live there!

"When did all this happen, Peter?" Wendy found herself quite determined to learn as much as possible, so that perhaps together they might comprehend how such a disaster might have been caused to occur.

Unfortunately, Peter's sense of time was not particularly accurate. In Neverland, time had been entirely irrelevant to his life, and so he found no use for the concept. Since his banishment to the streets of London, Peter had developed some vague understanding of time, but he still had not fully grasped its complexities.

"Very long ago," he replied, certain that this was accurate, for it seemed he had been in London nearly forever.

Frustrated, Wendy thought how to get more precise information out of the boy, and then she had an idea. "When did you start growing, Peter? Was it right away when you found yourself in London?"

Peter nodded. "It seemed to go on and on," he explained as if deeply offended. "And hairs grew in very wrong places. Look at my legs!" And, at this, Peter pulled back the blankets to show his legs beneath his nightshirt, though it must be admitted that one of the aforementioned legs was encased in plaster, and therefore illustrated Peter's point not at all. "Look!" Peter pointed, affronted, at his one bare shin. "Hairs!"

And then, pulling the blankets back up with uncharacteristic modesty and glancing away from Wendy in embarrassment, he muttered, "And they are elsewhere, too. Hairs nearly everywhere."

Biting her lip to keep in the laughter that begged to be released from her lips, Wendy nonetheless simultaneously blushed slightly at this mention of the effects of growing up. She had experienced similar effects, herself, after all.

"Well, Peter, based upon your height, your face, and your ... um ... hairs" -- at which, Wendy blushed dispite her best efforts not to do so -- "you look perhaps two years older than you were when I knew you in Neverland. Does that sound right?"

Having to some extent grasped the concept of years, Peter nodded and explained, "Old Hettie said I was there for two years, though I'm not sure how long that is."

"So this ... this problem with Neverland ... you think it happened perhaps two years ago, Peter?"

"I guess so."

"Was anything strange before the changes occurred?"

Peter shook his head. "Things were a little dull, maybe. Not so many fights with the pirates, though that was probably just because Hook was dead. Not very much to do, I suppose."

Wendy's head was growing quite achy from trying to solve this puzzle, and so she rubbed her forehead, and then suddenly found herself coughing again. This wretched cold was a nuisance.

"Wendy?" Peter's voice was quiet and tentative. "I don't want to talk about this any more today. Would you just tell me some stories instead? Not stories about Neverland, just stories about something else. Like the man who looked for the lady with the glass slippers."

"You remember Cinderella?" Wendy was surprised, for it seemed so very long ago that Peter had listened at the nursery window.

"I tried to remember," admitted Peter. "But now I can just have you tell it to me again, and I don't have to try."

Laughing a very welcome small laugh after so many tears and worries, Wendy proceeded to tell stories, sitting ever on the side of Peter's bed, with his hand sometimes in hers.

She told of Cinderella and her battle with the beautiful pirate queen, Red Maggie, who wore a patch over her left eye and had long flaming red hair that flew about her when she fought, so that she looked as if she were on fire. The battles between the two women were fierce and thrilling!

Wendy also told Peter of Sleeping Beauty, left slumbering in a dank cave, through which ran a dark and mysterious river, teeming thickly with pale blind fish which had never been touched by the rays of the sun, but which could devour a person's flesh entirely in three minutes, leaving nothing but a clean white skeleton, which would then sink to join many others at the bottom of the river.

She also told of Snow White, and of her pet wolf which had been forsaken by its parents, and which cleaved to her side and protected her always against any danger. For it may be noticed that Wendy's imagination, once stimulated again, had taken over, quite as it had done when she was a child. It flowed through her like a magical river. And, through her, into Peter.

That evening, Aunt Millicent did not emerge for dinner, which was most unlike her, for she believed strongly in the importance of keeping a strict routine. Wendy wondered after her aunt's well-being, but did not wish to intrude by knocking upon her door. Instead, Wendy quietly took dinner to the guest room upon a tray, and she and Peter dined sitting together upon the bed, as if it were a picnic. And as they picnicked, since she had little appetite, Wendy continued her stories, and Peter listened with eager ears.

* * *

Over the next several days, Wendy spent most of her time in Peter's room, except while she slept. Aunt Millicent was quiet and introspective, not interested in talking or sewing together as they had wont to do in the past. Instead, she urged Wendy to do as she liked with her time.

Occasionally, Wendy would come downstairs to find her aunt upon the divan with a novel in her hand, her eyes looking elsewhere as she sat motionless and quite clearly heartbroken. But whenever Wendy attempted to offer any sort of comfort, Aunt Millicent merely waved her away with vague thanks, and returned to her melancholy.

Wendy hated Dr. Carew even more for what he had done to poor Aunt Millicent, who now seemed quite broken by the experience of having known him. To have developed hopes, after such a very long time, only to see them dashed and -- even worse -- proven ridiculous was a terrible blow to the poor woman.

Unfortunately, the following week Thursday at length did arrive, and along with it arrived Dr. Carew, ostensibly to examine Wendy regarding her cough. Aunt Millicent stayed in her bedchamber with the door closed, and instructed Lottie to answer the door and accompany the doctor to Wendy's room.

"The lovely Miss Darling," smiled Dr. Carew charmingly as he entered her room. "How are you feeling?"

"I am quite well, doctor. I have no need of your attentions." Wendy was rather impolite in the curtness of her reply, if truth be known, but she felt quite justified in speaking so.

"No cough?" inquired Dr. Carew with an arching of one eyebrow.

Unfortunately, Wendy's cough chose that exact moment to emerge, making it impossible for her to lie.

"Sit upon the bed, my dear, and let us have a listen." Dr. Carew drew out a strange instrument, placing cords into his ears and then pressing a cold disk to Wendy's back. "Breath deeply, my dear. That's it."

After looking down Wendy's throat, making her stick out her tongue, and pressing the cold thing against her back more than once, the doctor at length stood before her with a very serious expression. "You, young lady," he began somberly, pausing for dramatic emphasis before concluding, "have nothing but a simple cold." And then he smiled, as if this were some great joke.

Wendy did not laugh. "I know," she replied coldly. "I have been saying so from the first."

"But," interrupted Dr. Carew, "your cough is quite bothersome and has been irritating your throat. We would not want to allow that beautiful singing voice to be damaged." Wendy scowled. Without Aunt Millicent to rebuke her by word or look, Wendy remained only barely civil to the odious Dr. Carew.

"I am prescribing for you a dose of morphine each evening before bed," the doctor explained. "It will quiet the cough. Continue the treatment until the cough has bettered. And I shall visit again in two weeks' time to check on your progress."

"I am certain that will not be necessary, Dr. Carew."

"No, no, I insist, my dear. It would not do to allow yourself to become seriously ill!"

And so when Dr. Carew departed with his small discreet bundle of payment which had been left politely upon the table in the entryway, he promised to return in two weeks, little though any member of the household wished his presence among them.

Politeness, unfortunately, did not permit Aunt Millicent to enlist the help of a different doctor and dismiss the services of Dr. Carew. For to do so would only draw attention to her own previous foolish behavior and hopes. And so she simply drew courage to face him upon future occasions if Wendy's health so required, for she would not hide within her room to avoid his company again. This was her own house, and she would not be driven into hiding.

* * *

As the days went by, and many stories were told, Peter's health improved such that, in time, his injuries seemed entirely healed. He was excessively frustrated with the plaster upon his left leg. It was no longer necessary, but it inhibited his movement and itched abominably. He loathed the thing most passionately, and knocked upon it often with his fist, as if to break it open.

Along with his health, Peter also seemed to have gradually recovered nearly all of his memories, and any remaining gaps might be blamed just as easily on Peter's own careless disregard for such things. He now remembered what Hook had said to bring him crashing to the deck of the Jolly Roger, and so that mystery was now solved for him, though he still did not tell Wendy. He did not want for her to know how much it had bothered him to think of her leaving and forgetting him.

Now that he remembered everything, he was even more pleased than he had been previously that Wendy had searched for him so persistently on Oxford Street and in Whitechapel. She had **not** forgotten him! He felt quite smug about the whole thing.

And, as more days passed, and Wendy told even more stories, Peter noticed that the plaster upon his leg gradually become loose enough that he could squeeze his leg out of it, and he was once again free of the horrid encumbrance, much to his ensuing delight. In celebration, he proceeded to joyfully race up and down the stairs repeatedly, until Aunt Millicent shouted rather desperately for quiet.

For, as you may have guessed, Peter had again begun to grow younger and younger, fed by Wendy's stories, until he at last arrived once more at the age at which he had first met her. He was once again a joyful and carefree boy, who showed very little concern for this unusual transformation, since being himself felt perfectly natural, and he felt nothing but glee at being once more himself.

There was no one else to witness this transformation except Wendy, for Aunt Millicent kept largely to herself, and Lottie felt it impolite to notice. And so Wendy had known for some time that Peter was growing younger, and in truth it had saddened her, for Peter had gone from a handsome young man of her own age ... to being a boy significantly younger than she. **How** did not matter, for it was incomprehensible to her. What mattered most to Wendy was that Peter Pan was once more a child, while she was not. Was she to treat him as a younger brother, as with the boys? She could never feel about him as she should toward a brother, and so this was all quite quite hopeless.

* * *

And then came the evening when it all changed most unexpectedly. As Peter lay asleep in his abhorrently pink and white bed, the window latch began suddenly to turn, seemingly all on its own. Slowly, slowly, the latched wiggled and woggled and at last the window flew upon with a clatter, sending the curtains billowing into the room.

Peter woke from his sleep to drowsily gaze about him in confusion, only to suddenly leap fully awake from the bed when he saw a golden light fly haphazardly into the room. "Tink?" he cried with great hope in his heart. "Tinker Bell, is that you?"

And, indeed, the light flew toward him to tweak his ear and giggle to him, and it was Tinker Bell, just as she had always been, as if she had never ever vanished into nothing and left him confused and alone.

"Tink! What happened? Where did you go?" Peter had so many questions he was not even sure which to ask first, but these seemed the most important.

But Tinker Bell simply scolded him for being silly, and said that she had not gone anywhere, and what was he talking about? And why was he away from Neverland so long? He must come back, right away!

Peter was shocked by these developments, but he believed Tinker Bell with the easy trust that children bestow so freely, and so he immediately resolved to return with her immediately.

There was only one problem. Wendy.

Peter padded silently to Wendy's bedroom, Tinker Bell hovering just over his right shoulder. He knocked quietly, but Wendy did not seem to have been sleeping, for she opened the door rather quickly. "What is it, Peter?" she whispered ... only then noticing Tinker Bell. Gasping with surprise and wonder, Wendy nearly shouted aloud with happiness, but quickly quieted her own voice to say quietly, "Tinker Bell! You are alive!"

Tink, of course, thought this a perfectly ridiculous thing to say, because **of course** she was alive, and why were Peter and Wendy behaving so strangely, and Peter must return to Neverland immediately, so good-bye!

Peter explained only the final part of what Tink had said. "I must return to Neverland, Wendy," he told her. "Tink says that it is just as always, and I don't know what has happened, but I must return."

Wendy gave a weak smile and said softly, "I am glad for you, Peter. I am glad that Neverland is safe once more, however it happened."

"But you must come with me!" Peter insisted.

"No, Peter, I cannot. I have grown too old. I made my choice more than three years ago, Peter, a long time ago. I must stay here." It broke her heart to say so, but looking at Peter, so young and merry, Wendy knew that she could not possibly stay with him as she now was. She would have given much to return to those days in the nursery, and make a different choice, but that time had long passed.

"No!" Peter stamped his foot. "You must come with me to Neverland. Why would you want to stay in this horrible place?"

Wendy smiled sadly and said, "My Aunt Millicent needs me, Peter. She has given me so much ... I cannot leave her alone like this. My life has changed, Peter. I'm sorry. I cannot go. I **will** not go."

"Fine!" hissed Peter. "I hope you **die**!" He did not mean to be cruel, of course, but he was very angry at not getting what he wanted, and so lashed out as any selfish child might. He did not, of course, want for Wendy to die. He only wanted for her to come with him. But she was refusing him, and he was in a terrible pout over it.

"I'm **leaving**!" he announced, waiting for Wendy to attempt to stop him. When she did not, he turned sulkily to walk back toward his room, where the open window waited for him.

"Peter," Wendy called very softly, and Peter turned with a smug smile, certain that she must have changed her mind and was coming with him. "Peter, I will miss you."

That was all? She truly was **not** coming with him? Peter turned his back on Wendy and walked back to the horrid pink guest room, bidding it good-bye with a last burst of loathing. "Who wants her, anyway!" he muttered angrily, betraying in his tone perhaps more than a small amount of grief and hurt, however much he might have denied it.

And with that, Peter Pan stepped up to the window, accompanied by Tinker Bell, and flew out into the night.

At the window beside the one from which he had flown, a young woman's face was illumined by the moonlight as she pressed her palm to the glass, as if she were bidding a sad and silent farewell.

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**Author's Note:** So there you have it. Some happy stuff happened (Peter's injuries mysteriously finished healing, he got his memory back, Neverland seems to be mysteriously okay, Tinker Bell is mysteriously okay), but also some angsty stuff (Peter left all ticked off, not knowing that Wendy may be in danger from "Dr. Carew"). Next time, more happy stuff and more angsty stuff ... the drama continues! I know it's terribly soap opera-ish, but I'm having loads of fun writing it. :)


	9. Life and Death

**Author's Note:** First I want to explain something for those who encountered a bit of a blip regarding this chapter. You see, I wrote this chapter, uploaded it to ff.net, had a couple hours to think about it, and decided that I absolutely HATED it. So I deleted the chapter and rewrote it from scratch. I like the new version much better, but I know I confused some people who received alerts from ff.net that a new chapter had been posted, but then it didn't appear, as well as some people who actually saw the chapter before it vanished. Sorry for the confusion, folks.

To anyone who was concerned that Chapter 8 was the end, noooooooo, there are at least 2 more chapters after this one. (I say "at least" because my chapters sometimes run long, and end up getting split.) There's still plenty of things that need to be cleared up.

I know that some of you are upset that Peter became a boy again. To you, I can only say ... trust me. :)

Thanks again to all who have reviewed. I must admit that reviews make me write faster. :)

Now for a warning for our less intrepid readers: Did you think the angst in previous chapters was too much? Bail out now! The next couple chapters are even more angsty. **Things will get better eventually**, but first they're going to get considerably worse. Consider yourself warned. :)

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Wendy's health declined rather rapidly after Peter's departure. Her cough grew steadily worse, though Dr. Carew still insisted it was but a cold. He recommended that the delicate Wendy be protected from outside germs and contagion by staying as much as possible inside the house, and keeping the windows always shut. Aunt Millicent dutifully latched all windows in the house and pulled all of the thick curtains securely closed against any potential drafts.

Though his welcome there was decidedly forced, Dr. Carew visited the house once each fortnight to see whether Wendy's situation had bettered.

With each visit, however, her situation had instead worsened.

As time went on and Wendy's cough did not improve, she grew increasingly weak and felt always tired, and so took to spending a great deal of her time in the sitting room, lying wanly upon the divan, while Aunt Millicent read to her.

For indeed Aunt Millicent's concern for her niece's health now quite banished her concern of an overactive imagination. If stories might comfort poor Wendy, then Aunt Millicent would read her stories. They had begun working their way through Rudyard Kipling's oeuvre, and found themselves to both be enjoying _The Jungle Book_ most wonderfully. Aunt Millicent read aloud surprisingly well, astonishing even herself with her unexpected dramatic flare.

Where once Aunt Millicent had pressed Wendy to eat very little so as to remain ladylike and elegant, she now fretted over Wendy's refusal to eat anything whatsoever. Wendy's appetite, it seemed, had quite utterly fled. Aunt Millicent watched her niece with worried eyes, not knowing what she might possibly do to help the girl, but fearing the worst.

Dr. Carew continued to visit, though his treatments offered Wendy little relief. He speculated that perhaps Wendy had contracted some disease from the absent young man, Peter, who had lived some time on the streets of London among the thronging poor and unwashed, who carry so very many diseases.

Of course, if Aunt Millicent had been given any remote idea of how many of London's thronging poor, unwashed, and ill citizens Wendy had spoken with during her searches for Peter on Oxford Street and in Whitechapel, that elegant lady would have fainted dead away. And so it was a kindness that Wendy had never told her.

And so time flew, and Dr. Carew continued his attentions to Wendy's health, despite his lack of success in the treatment of her growing illness.

And if during his visits Dr. Carew's hair was sometimes slightly longer and more wavy than was fashionable, Wendy in her fevered mind thought nothing of it, unaware that the man cut his hair afresh each morning to rid himself of the long, curling tendrils which mysteriously grew anew each night while he slept. At any rate, Wendy was too ill to pay the doctor close attention, Aunt Millicent did her concerted best to never look at the gentleman while she tolerated his visits in the house, and Lottie would have considered it impolite to notice.

It is true that Dr. Carew did offer Wendy **some** relief, for the morphine he had prescribed did indeed reduce her coughing, as well as easing her chest pain and leaving her less anxious and more able to relax. And under the influence of the morphine she often dreamt marvelous dreams, filled with the most wonderful adventures.

Indeed even in her sleep, Wendy was a storyteller in her deepest and dearest heart of hearts. She had a rare and precious gift: she could tell stories that came alive. That was who she was, a storyteller. She had lost her stories for a time, her imaginative spirit dulled down by responsibility and politeness, but Peter's reappearance in her life had helped her to find her heart once more. Her stories had returned to her. And so even in her fevered sleep, even in the clutches of illness, she continued telling stories in her dreams.

She dreamt of a wolf who became her loyal friend and guardian, of a dark cavern through which a dangerous river ran filled with pale blind fish, and of Red Maggie the pirate queen.

"Didst thou ever want to be a pirate, me hearty?" Red Maggie asked her in her dreams, and Wendy flew into the air to battle the pirate queen who had been so impertinent as to question whether Wendy herself might be tempted to such a dishonorable profession as piracy.

But in the night, Wendy woke often from her dreams shivering, her nightdress quite soaked in sweat, and she lay upon her dampened bedclothes and looked with dark, fever-bright eyes toward the window, though it was thoroughly covered by thick curtains. She wondered if Peter had found Neverland again, and if all was well.

Just as she had said she would, she missed him terribly.

Time went on apace, and Wendy became at length confined to her bed. The coughing had grown so very much worse that she sometimes produced blood when she coughed. Her weakness too had grown, and she still could not bring herself to eat.

Wendy slowly grew ever more pale, thin, and frail. She looked quite another young lady than she had done when Peter had left her, her eyes now large and dark in her thin face, her hair grown dull and her skin so white as to appear nearly gray. She breathed only with difficulty, and was often wracked by coughing even despite the morphine.

* * *

It was during one of Dr. Carew's dreaded visits that Wendy made a most shocking discovery. The doctor had been examining her, pressing his cold disk to her back and telling her to breathe deeply, which of course led to a bout of coughing that left her feeling even weaker than she had before.

"Hmm," said Dr. Carew, touching his left hand to the skin of her forehead to analyze her temperature. But as he leaned forward to do this, Wendy saw that the sleeve of his other arm pulled back slightly from where it had covered his hand quite thoroughly in a rather unfashionable and untidy way.

But when that sleeve pulled back just the slightest amount, Wendy caught sight of the doctor's right hand, and saw that it was shriveled and shrunken, and she gasped.

"What is it, my dear girl?" asked Dr. Carew with his usual odious solicitousness.

Wendy looked up into his face, and into his piercing blue eyes, and stammered, "Your hand ... is cold."

Nodding sagely, Dr. Carew replied, "That is your fever, dear Wendy. It has worsened."

Wendy gulped and tried not to stare, and yet her eyes were wide and confused, which Dr. Carew noticed as he stood to leave.

* * *

"I am afraid her condition has worsened, Miss Tilney."

Aunt Millicent preferred to avoid the doctor's company as much as possible, but she did speak with him after each of his visits so that she might learn of any developments in her niece's now quite frightening illness.

"Is there anything we can do for her, doctor?"

Gesturing toward the stairway with a graceful and perfectly formed left hand, Dr. Carew explained, "I am afraid the young lady's fever has grown quite dangerous, and her eyes shine with a most worrisome confusion."

"But what can we do? Can anything be done?" Aunt Millicent was growing quite frantic with worry. She loved her niece very deeply, and felt rather responsible that the girl had grown ill while in her care.

"You might apply cool cloths to her forehead, and make sure not to light the fire in her bedchamber, but there is little else to be done for her."

As they continued to speak in quiet tones about the health of the dreadfully ill young lady upstairs, neither of them realized that the young lady in question had weakly struggled from her bed, asking Lottie to help her dress as quickly and secretly as possible.

"Turn out the lamps when I have gone," Wendy whispered to the maid, "and tell Aunt Millicent that I am sleeping. And fetch Harry!"

Luckily, Lottie had extensive experience with hiding Wendy's more inappropriate adventures, having covertly scrubbed many a soiled dress when the young lady returned from Oxford Street or Whitechapel, and so Lottie simply smiled and nodded, pleased to be of service to a lady who had been so consistently kind and respectful toward her.

* * *

When Dr. Carew had finished his rather stilted conversation with Miss Millicent Tilney, he took his discreetly wrapped payment from the table near the door, and he left. His carriage awaited him, and so he climbed within and knocked upon the ceiling, signaling for his driver to take him home.

He did not notice the carriage behind his own, which followed at a cautious distance. And, having never paid any attention whatever to Miss Tilney's servants, he would not have recognized the driver even if he had seen him.

Harry kept the doctor's carriage always in sight, as Miss Darling had instructed him, and followed the fellow with some satisfaction, for even Miss Tilney's servants had disliked the unpleasant and seemingly disingenuous fellow upon first sight.

* * *

When at length Dr. Carew's carriage came to a stop at a respectable-looking home in Kensington, Harry too stopped in the shadows some small distance away. Within the carriage, a fevered, trembling Wendy watched the doctor alight from his carriage and enter the house, closing the door behind him. One of the ground floor windows became subtly illuminated, a sliver of light escaping through a slight gap between the curtains.

"Wait here, Harry," Wendy whispered softly, and then cautiously crossed the street to stand in the darkness below the illumined window. The space between the curtains was so thin that she could see little, and so she instead pressed her ear to the glass, hoping to hear something useful.

It could **not** be Hook! Surely she must have imagined it. Hook was dead! And, at any rate, he would not be in London! She was quite certain she must have been imagining the resemblance. Her mind was often dreadfully muddled with the fever, and so she needed to learn more, to learn if it had been only her mind, or if this man could truly be the dreaded pirate she had known in Neverland.

Desperately fighting the weakness of her limbs which urged her at each moment to sink upon the ground, fighting the shivering chills that attacked her despite the raging fever, Wendy stubbornly held her ear against the window.

"Now, good Dr. Carew," the man said, and indeed his voice did sound less genteel and more of an arrogant growl, his voice deeper and less fashionably charming. "Dr. Carew, what are we to do about my hand? As such a skilled and educated doctor, I have every confidence that you know **precisely** what to do."

It sounded as if Hook, for she now was sure that it **must** be he, were pacing back and forth across the floor, in some agitation.

"Tell me, my **dear** Dr. Carew, where I might have fashioned a fine **hook** for myself, for I find this wretched hand quite useless to me now."

A moment passed, with footsteps the only sound. Wendy felt an almost overwhelming need to cough, but pressed her hand tightly over her mouth, for she felt certain that Hook would kill her if he knew she were there. Her body shook with the silent coughing held within by her restraining hand, but Wendy found that she felt no better afterward. Her chest was paining her, and she felt increasingly weak from standing so long, but she would **not** leave until she knew as much as possible about what Hook was up to.

"No answer, Dr. Carew? You are such a disappointing conversationalist."

Who was Hook talking to? Was he talking to himself? Or was the real Dr. Carew held prisoner inside? Wendy turned her head to peer through the tiny gap between the curtains. She saw Hook, still dressed in clothes quite similar to her father's, and any other modern gentleman's, his hair somewhat in disarray as if he had been combing his fingers through it. She could now see that it seemed rather longer than usual, and quite wavy.

Hook paced into and out of her vision repeatedly, grumbling darkly to himself and gesturing occasionally with the glass goblet he held in his hand, as if he had been drinking brandy.

"And, good **excellent** Dr. Carew, I hold you **personally** responsible for the fact that" -- and here Hook's voice rose to a roar -- "**PAN IS GONE!**" And with those words, Hook furiously threw his brandy glass across the room so that it shattered, slightly jarring the curtain so that Wendy had a marginally better view of the room.

But the slight movement of the curtain was enough. For Wendy saw, propped in a corner of the room, the person to whom Hook had been speaking.

It was the corpse of a long-dead man, his putrid, discolored flesh rotting and horrible.

Shocked at the sight, the frail Wendy gasped, her last bit of strength deserting her as her illness overtook her stubborn determination. With a small cry of distress, she fell insensible to the ground, shivering unconsciously, her body drenched in an unhealthy sweat.

* * *

Hearing a sound from without, Hook frowned and narrowed his eyes, cautiously pulling aside the curtain barely enough for him to peer outside. But the surrounding area was too dark for him to see anything, and so he walked toward his door, a revolver in his left hand.

Just as Hook opened the door and stepped onto the narrow stoop to look about for what had made the mysterious sound, he spied Wendy collapsed and unconscious upon the ground. He recognized her immediately, of course, and an enraged growl emerging from his throat as he took a step toward her, cocking his revolver.

"Miss Darling!" another man called in distress at that same moment, running across the street toward the front of Hook's home.

Stepping out of the light and back inside his house to quietly close the door, Hook went once more to the window and watched with cruel and dangerous eyes as Wendy Darling was carried away.

* * *

Poor Harry found himself quite panicked and confused after carefully laying the limp Miss Darling within the carriage. Should he take her immediately to the hospital? Or should he return her to Miss Tilney's home? Unaccustomed to making such decisions without direct instruction from his mistress, Harry resolved that he should take the young lady back from whence she had come, and then ask his mistress for further instructions.

* * *

Aunt Millicent, of course, was quite beside herself when Wendy was brought into the house even more pale than usual, her dress drenched with not only her own sweat but also the moisture of the grass upon which she had fallen in her faint. She had not even known that her niece had left the house! And what had the girl been thinking, to leave in her condition? It was scandalous!

Aunt Millicent asked Harry to take Wendy to her bed, where she was lain with great care and concern. She still had not wakened, and her breathing was harsh and labored, her body wracked by painful coughing, and her skin as heated as if a fire burned within her. The poor girl tossed her head upon the pillow in distress, speaking occasionally in delirious bouts of mad mutterings.

"It's Hook!" she moaned. "Not a doctor! Not a doctor!"

"But Wendy," soothed Aunt Millicent gently, applying a cold cloth to her niece's fevered brow, "we simply **must** call a doctor, for you are quite ill."

In fact, Aunt Millicent had sent an urgent message to Dr. Carew that his services were most desperately needed, but he had -- rather oddly -- not replied.

"It's Hook," moaned Wendy deliriously. "Dead man! Terrible dead man!"

Aunt Millicent watched the girl in horrified worry. "Harry! Go to the Darlings' residence and ask where you might find their family's physician! Dr. Carew has not replied, and Wendy needs help immediately!"

Harry was gone almost even before Aunt Millicent had finished her sentence.

* * *

And so it was that Wendy was visited by Dr. Woodhouse, who had long been treating the Darling boys for their frequent and numerous scrapes, bumps, and bruises, for they were a most energetic brood of scamps.

Talking briefly first with Aunt Millicent in the drawing room to learn of Wendy's symptoms, the white-bearded, thin, most remarkably tall Dr. Woodhouse grew more and more grave. "Cough?" he verified. "Loss of appetite? Fever? Night sweats? Chills? Loss of energy?" And then he shook his head, looking downward at his hands. "It sounds as if it may be the consumption, Miss Tilney. I shall not know until I have examined her, of course, but it sounds gravely serious."

Aunt Millicent, it must be admitted, felt rather faint upon hearing this, but she encouraged the doctor to go upstairs to examine Wendy, and then sank down into the nearest chair, barely looking where she was, her hand lifting to anxiously finger the cameo at her throat as she tried desperately to control her mounting fear.

When Dr. Woodhouse slowly descended the stairs once more, some time later, Aunt Millicent stood, watching him anxiously for some word.

"Miss Tilney, I am afraid I have very unfortunate news. It is indeed the consumption, and it is very advanced."

"What does that mean?" inquired Aunt Millicent in a quavering voice.

"Miss Tilney, I am very sorry to tell you this, but ... your niece may not live through the week."

At which pronouncement, Aunt Millicent quite suddenly crumpled to the floor in a faint.

* * *

Peter, in the meantime, had returned to Neverland with Tinker Bell, and had been momentarily surprised to find the place entirely restored, as if nothing had ever gone wrong.

"Tink!" he cried joyfully as they flew over the island in great spiraling circles. "There is the waterfall! And the volcano! And the mermaids! And the fairies! And the Indians!"

Tinkerbell seemed to think he was behaving most strangely and making rather a big fuss over nothing. Peter would later learn that Neverland's other denizens, too, had no memory that anything untoward had happened to Neverland in the recent past. All was as it had always been.

Peter found that at the foot of his tree house he was joined by a loyal wolf who had been forsaken by its parents. "Who are you?" asked Peter. But the wolf had no name, only choosing to stay close to Peter and guard him against danger whenever the boy walked upon the ground, whenever he was not flying. For everyone knows that wolves cannot fly. Peter simply patted the wolf's fur and accepted him as a friend.

Peter quite happily settled back into the rhythm of Neverland, having many interesting adventures. Soon after his arrival, he explored the depths of a dark cave through which flowed a dark and mysterious river. Tinker Bell's light allowed Peter to see that beneath the surface the river was filled with pale blind fish which had never been touched by the light of the sun, and that the bottom of the river was carpeted with clean white bones. The cavern was an especially wonderful hiding place, and quite exciting to explore, particularly because of the constant danger of falling into the river and being devoured within three minutes by the voraciously carnivorous blind fish.

On his first day back, Peter excitedly went to call the mermaids, who came to him with much splashing and writhing in the water. They told him of the pirates, and their new leader, who was called "Red Maggie." And so Peter eagerly flew to the Jolly Roger, curious about this new pirate whom he intended to run through with his sword before she had even realized he was there.

And there were the pirates, just as Wendy had always described them, with the addition of a flame-haired woman whom they apparently called "Red Maggie." She was tall for a woman, and fine-boned, her skirts tied up with various cords to keep her legs free for fighting. She wore a sword at her waist, and her red hair hung down her back like a curtain of fire.

"Red Maggie?" Peter called with a laugh, as he soared in and out of the rigging, and all 'round the pirate ship.

"Who calls?" asked the woman in a growling purr. She turned her face toward him, and Peter saw that she wore a black patch over one eye, and that her cheek beneath the patch was marked with a wide white scar in a straight line almost to her chin. Aside from the scarring, she was quite beautiful.

The pirate queen drew her sword and followed Peter's flight with her eyes. "Would you be Peter Pan?"

"You've heard of me!" Peter crowed, quite pleased with this development.

"Aye. Ye are the lad who killed Captain James Hook, are ye not?"

"Aye, Red Maggie, that I am. I defeated him and he was swallowed whole by a crocodile. And I shall defeat **you**, as well!"

"Nay, lad, I think ye shall not. For ye have denied me my revenge against James Hook!"

"Revenge?" asked Peter. This was an interesting development.

"Many years ago, Captain James Hook and I battled fierce, and in that battle he did pluck out me eye," at which mention, the lady fingered the patch she wore. "He also scarred me face most terrible. And for this I must have my revenge!"

"Sorry. He's already dead. Too bad for you!" Peter gloated, swooping in arrogant circles, sometimes coming quite close to the lady pirate as he flew, sometimes tweaking a lock of her hair, sometimes walking across the top of her head quite rudely.

"Insolent lad! Ye have taken me revenge from me! And for this I shall hunt ye and kill ye **dead**!"

"Good luck!" cried Peter, laughing merrily. "You can't even **catch** me!"

"One day I shall, Peter Pan!" Red Maggie shouted. "One day I shall!" At which point, Peter soared away, bored with the taunting, certain to return another day to gleefully clash swords.

* * *

If changes had occurred to Neverland since last he had seen it, and indeed they had, Peter did not notice, but blithely lived as if the Neverland had always been so, for indeed he did not remember that it had ever been different.

He did not notice that the stories Wendy had told him in London had somehow affected Neverland, for such an idea would never have made the slightest amount of sense to him. How could Wendy affect the Neverland? Of course she could not! And yet she had, and the proof was right before him -- in his wolf companion, in the pale blind carnivorous fish, and in Red Maggie -- though he did not choose to see it.

If he had cared to think about such things, Peter might have wondered how it was that Wendy's stories had healed him, and now also seemed to have changed the Neverland. Had she healed the **Neverland** just as she had healed **him**? How? And if so, why had Neverland died in the first place? Had that also to do with Wendy's stories? Had her stories somehow died, and taken Neverland with them? And then somehow returned it all?

Perhaps in fact it is best that Peter did **not** care to think about such things, for if he had he would most likely only have found himself in a dreadful muddle that would make him very cross. And Peter hated to be cross.

And so Peter did not think great thoughts, but instead went about his daily adventures, talking to mermaids, dancing with Indians, climbing trees, swimming down waterfalls, flying with fairies, and battling the pirates. All was quite as it should be. Peter had even found that the new pirate leader was a most enjoyable adversary, and he quite enjoyed their battles.

This Red Maggie was a brave and excellent swordsman, and her hair fanned out about her when she fought, making it look as if she were on fire. She was a worthy opponent, and her sword was quick and nimble. Though she could not, of course, compare to Peter Pan.

How could she? He was the best there ever was!

And yet, no matter how many adventures he had, Peter did not feel truly happy. It seemed that something was missing.

He told himself that it was Hook. Hook indeed **was** missing, and of course he should be, since he had been swallowed by the crocodile. Hook had been a fearsome foe, and so of course his absence would be noticed.

But Hook had been replaced by Red Maggie, who was great fun as well. And yet, no matter how many thrilling battles Peter fought against the new pirate queen, he **still** did not feel truly happy. It seemed that something far more important than Hook was missing.

"I miss Wendy," he whispered to himself one night as he stared up at Neverland's sky thick with stars. And as he said it, he suddenly knew it to be true.

But he did not **want** it to be true, and so for a long time he tried to deny it. She had refused to come with him, and he did not need her at all. She could stay in her stupid house in stupid London forever and he didn't care a single bit.

Now, Peter was exceedingly talented at lying to himself, which can be a rather useful talent, but even he could not deny the truth forever.

"I miss Wendy," he whispered sadly to the waves that crashed upon the rocks at the Mermaids' Lagoon. "I miss her."

It was true. He missed Wendy. And he wanted her back.

And so, when he at last ceased denying his feelings on the matter, Peter made a decision.

"Tink?" he called. "Tinker Bell!" When the fairy came racing to him and hovered before his face, he said firmly, "I am going to go back and **make** Wendy come with me." Tinker Bell made surprised but not entirely unsupportive noises. "Do you want to come?" Tinker Bell nodded, always excited for an adventure with Peter.

And so, right that very moment, Peter and Wendy lifted off the ground with determined expressions on both their faces as they flew away from Neverland and toward Wendy.

And as they flew, Peter said grimly, "I shall **not** return alone!"

_______________________________________

**Author's End Note:** You know, I thought about ending this chapter with Aunt Millicent fainting at the announcement that Wendy is dying, but I decided to take pity on you guys and give you something a bit more hopeful, instead of saving the Peter stuff for chapter 10. :) 

More to come, most likely tomorrow. I'll probably finish the story this weekend.

You know, this has been a very difficult story to write, because it is very difficult to write dialogue for a Peter who does not know that he is Peter, a Hook who does not know that he is Hook (yeah, you'll learn about that in the next chapter), and a Hook who knows that he is Hook but is still pretending to be an Edwardian gentleman. I'm glad everybody knows who they are, now, because things should be a bit easier to write in these final chapters. Whew!


	10. Too Ill and Too Old

**Author's Note:** Aw heck. I made myself cry while writing this chapter. So if you're anything like me, you might want some Kleenex handy. This is by far the angstiest chapter.

_____________________________________________

Lottie stood at the top of the stairs, leaning over to listen to the ladies and gentlemen below. Her white cap was taken off her blonde head, and was instead clutched within her fingers in her sorrow at what she was learning.

The young lady was more ill than any had realized. The young lady was going to die! Lottie's tears streamed down her face and into the high neck of her plain black work dress. She blotted her tears with her white cap, but they still streamed down.

* * *

Downstairs, George and Mary Darling sat in the drawing room with Aunt Millicent and Dr. Woodhouse. The doctor had sent word to the Darlings that they should come at once, after Miss Millicent Tilney had swooned. He knew that she would want family beside her at such a time.

Miss Tilney had recovered somewhat, though her face was yet drawn and pale. She sat beside Mrs. Darling and held her hand in a desperate grip.

"Certainly this tragedy could have been prevented," Dr. Woodhouse explained regretfully. "If the young lady had been given earlier treatment."

Aunt Millicent frowned in confusion. "But she was seen regularly by Dr. Carew."

"Dr. Carew?" asked Dr. Woodhouse. He looked rather odd at hearing the name. "I do know a Dr. Carew who resides in Kensington, but he has gone abroad. He left some months ago."

Aunt Millicent shook her head, "No, that cannot be. Dr. Carew has visited here often in the past months. He has treated Wendy's illness for quite some time now. He is a tall gentleman, though not as tall as yourself, with very blue eyes and dark hair. Perhaps the gentleman you know is a different Dr. Carew."

"The gentleman you describe sounds like the Mr. Cook who has been letting Dr. Carew's home while he is away. It was he who informed me of Dr. Carew's trip abroad," explained Dr. Woodhouse with a furrow to his brow.

But Mary Darling's anxiety for her daughter had grown increasingly dire as this conversation had continued, and she now broke in to ask, "Is there nothing that can be done?"

Dr. Woodhouse shook his head sadly and remarked, "If she had been given sufficient fresh air and good nutrition earlier, it may have saved her life, but I fear it is much too late for that now. If the windows are kept open, the fresh air may give her some relief, but it will only help to make her more comfortable as her time approaches."

Aunt Millicent listened in horror, thinking of the months during which she had kept the windows and curtains so tightly closed on the recommendation of Dr. Carew. Wendy's desperate condition was her own fault, for trusting a strange man they had met upon the street. That fine and elegant lady put her face into her hands and wept for her niece and for herself, who had caused so much harm through her own vanity and false hopes.

Mary Darling put one arm around the shoulders of Aunt Millicent and wept with her, while simultaneously attempting to dry both their tears with her handkerchief. The task was entirely unsuccessful, and she at length abandoned herself to tears, holding the other woman closely to her.

George Darling sat quite straight upon the settee, as if he were made of wood. His face had shown no expression as he had listened to these explanations, but his eyes had filled with a grief rendered only more painful by its suppression. He knew that it fell to him to comfort the ladies, and so he could not indulge his own sorrow.

He walked to the divan and gently pulled his wife to him, so that her face rested in the hollow between his neck and shoulder. He held her gently, stroking one hand comfortingly along her back. He felt her tears drench his neck and soak into the starched collar of his shirt, and he felt somehow that those tears by touching his skin became his own, the ones he could not permit himself to shed.

Aunt Millicent, suddenly bereft, found her hands taken in those of the doctor, who sat beside her and offered what comfort he could. He unfortunately had some experience with giving such news, and his softly spoken words to the lady did in fact give some comfort, did in fact lift some of the guilt from her shoulders, and she looked at that kind man with teary but grateful eyes.

* * *

The Darlings had been forced to bring the boys with them, as no one was available to sit with them on such short notice, and so the children had been sent to the sitting room, where they had been instructed to wait quietly.

Normally, such instructions would have been forgotten within moments, resulting in various extremely noisy disasters, but on this particular evening the somberness of the adults affected the children as well, and all six boys sat upon the uncomfortable furniture, eyeing each other with curiosity and fear.

They had not been told what was happening, but they did know that Wendy had been ill, and so they assumed this was something to do with her.

They sat quietly, looking back and forth at each other, until at last Nibs stood. "I'm going upstairs to see Wendy," he proclaimed. He always was the first into any scrape, and anyway they all knew that he was particularly fond of Wendy, though he would have beaten them terribly if they had said anything about it.

The other boys answered in hushed and anxious voices. "Mother and Father said to stay here!" "We'll be punished!" "Everyone would be angry!"

And yet, when Nibs crept to the door and looked about cautiously, he found himself followed by five other tiptoeing boys. Certain that they were unobserved, they then proceeded to sneak up the stairs fairly quietly, though one of the twins did trip and cause a terrible thump, causing all to freeze in place, fearing imminent discovery. When no one arrived to punish them, they climbed the rest of the way up the stairs.

Nibs knocked ever so quietly upon Wendy's door, but there was no answer. Glancing back at the other boys with a question in his eyes, he received only shrugs in response, and so Nibs went ahead and opened the door, peering around it as if afraid that he might see something he oughtn't.

But there lay Wendy in her bed, her long brown hair spread about her against the pillow. Nibs walked toward the bed and knelt beside it, while the other boys hovered near the door, uncertain what to do. They had never seen Wendy so still.

"Wendy?" whispered Nibs. But Wendy did not respond. It was just as when Tootles had shot her with his arrow and she had lain upon the leaves in Neverland. The other boys slowly inched their way into the room and gathered around.

"Why doesn't Peter come?" asked one of the twins in a plaintive voice. The boys did not know that Peter had been back fairly recently. They had heard nothing of the young man who had stayed in Aunt Millicent's home, for they visited only very rarely. Aunt Millicent, as a rule, preferred to keep the Darling boys away from her furniture and decorations.

"Peter is gone," John said regretfully. "He is never coming back."

"But why doesn't he save Wendy?" asked Michael, sniffling with tears at how dead his sister looked as she lay there.

And while the boys clustered around Wendy's bed and whispered among themselves, Nibs stood and walked to the window, stepping inside the curtains so that he faced the glass directly. He looked up toward the stars and whispered, "Come back, Peter. Come back."

Then, from behind him, he heard a soft sigh, and realized that it must be Wendy. Walking back to the bed, he gathered the smaller boys to himself and looked down at her. "Wendy?" he whispered. "Are you alive?"

And, indeed, Wendy's eyes opened, though they yet shown with the brightness of fever, and she did not understand quite where she was. With the boys looking down at her, she thought herself once more in Neverland, and murmured deliriously, "It's a ... lovely house. ... With a ... a door knocker. ... And a chimney. ... I promise ... I will do my best ... to be a ... a good mother."

And then Wendy began to cough, making a most terrible sound, not like any cold any of the boys had ever had. When she had done coughing, Nibs and John both noticed blood upon her lips, and began ushering the younger boys from the room.

But the twins held back a moment, whispering to Wendy in unison, "You are the best mother ever." And she smiled as she seemed to return to her sleep of sickness.

* * *

George and Mary came upstairs to see their daughter briefly before they went. They were shocked by her appearance, and crept away without waking her, wishing the poor girl any gentle rest she might be able to find. Before she would go, Mary pressed one soft sad kiss to her daughter's cheek.

When the Darlings left, both parents and children looking quite broken, as if they had been dealt a most horrible blow, Aunt Millicent slowly climbed the stairs to Wendy's room, where she opened the two windows as wide as they could be, and opened the curtains as well. To protect Wendy's modesty, Aunt Millicent loosed the sheer bedcurtains all 'round the bed, sure that they would not impede the flow of fresh air.

Looking down into the young and innocent face of her beloved niece for a long moment, Aunt Millicent swallowed a sob and left the room, closing the door behind her.

* * *

It was a very dark night, with no moon, and the room was bathed in deep shadows. And so when Peter Pan and Tinker Bell came in through the open window, very little was visible. Tink's light showed that the bed was curtained, and so Peter went toward it, telling the fairy to give him a moment of privacy. Tink pouted and scolded, but went to sit upon the window frame nonetheless.

Peter went to the bed and stepped inside the curtain, so that it hung down his back as he looked down at Wendy. In the shadows, Peter could not see Wendy's face very clearly, and so he did not realize how much she had changed. He knew only that he had come with a task, and he would perform that task no matter what. He would bring Wendy back to Neverland.

"Wake up!" he whispered, quite close to her ear. "Wake up, Wendy!"

Wendy's head tossed restlessly, and her eyes opened with their strange stare. "Peter," she breathed.

"Yes, Wendy, and you must come with me, back to Neverland!"

Wendy shook her head weakly, her hair sticking to her moist skin. "No ... no ... I cannot go back ... never go back."

This made Peter angry. "Why not?" he demanded, wondering why Wendy was behaving so strangely, since he had little experience with illness.

"I am too old!" said Wendy, her voice some small amount stronger, for her delirium was retreating slightly at the sight of Peter.

"You are **not** too old!" insisted Peter in frustration.

"Too old and too ill," sighed Wendy softly.

"Ill? What's that?" asked Peter impatiently. If it kept Wendy away from Neverland, then he would kill it! He took out his knife.

"Please go, Peter," Wendy urged quietly, her voice weak but her mind clear for the first time in some hours. Perhaps the fresh air was helping some small amount. Or perhaps it was simply Peter. "I should like to think of you always there, Peter, battling the pirates ... and talking to mermaids..." At that point, Wendy's speech was cut off by a most dreadful bout of coughing.

Peter did not like how this conversation was progressing **at all**. Why must Wendy be so stubborn? "You **must** come with me to Neverland, Wendy. Right now!" He stamped his foot lightly against the floor for emphasis.

Wendy rose up slightly against her pillows and tried to see Peter in the darkness. "It is too late for me, Peter. Far, far too late. Go back to Neverland, Peter. Go and never come back." Wendy was crying now, and her coughing had become terrible, sending her body into spasms of pain. She curled up on her side and coughed and coughed, blood spattering her pillow case.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and his ears in fine working order, Peter knew that something was terribly wrong, but he did not know what it was, or how to fight it.

What he **did** know, however, was that Wendy had been sleeping quietly when he arrived, and she now was in obvious distress and pain. Frightened that he was somehow killing Wendy without meaning to, Peter hesitantly walked back to the window where Tinker Bell waited, and he glanced back several times at the curtains that flowed softly around the bed, moving with the breeze that came through the window.

"I'm sorry, Wendy," he said quietly. "I didn't mean to hurt you." And then, with a heavy heart, he flew from the window.

"I wish I could help her, Tink," he mused as they flew toward Neverland. "She healed me ... why can't I heal her?"

But Tinker Bell had no thoughts on the matter, and so they flew onward.

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**Author's End Note:** Well, this turned out longer than I expected (since I got so caught up in all the Wendy-is-dying angst), so I'm giving it a chapter of its own.

Next chapter: The return of Hook! And probably Peter, as well, but I don't want to give away all my secrets. :)


	11. Voices in the Dark

**Author's Note:** We're getting toward the end now, as you may have guessed.

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After Peter had gone once more, Wendy did not immediately fall into sleep. Instead, she lay gazing in the direction in which he had gone, though her sight was hindered by the curtains surrounding her bed. She wondered what had motivated him to return again.

Suddenly, Wendy realized that she had not told Peter that Hook was here, that he was Dr. Carew! She felt horribly foolish. But the fever had been causing her head to ache most horribly, and it seemed sometimes to confuse her thoughts in an alarming manner. At the moment, Wendy's mind felt clear -- perhaps due to the cool air from the open window or perhaps due to Peter's brief presence -- though her body still felt so weak that she could barely move.

She had certainly been in no condition to follow Hook tonight, but she had felt that it was necessary and important, and so she had done what needed doing. It had left her far more ill, however.

As Wendy lay in her bed, thinking of these and other things, she heard a stair creak in the hall. Who would be walking about at such a late hour?

Next, Wendy heard the door to her bedroom open with a soft click, and then close again. "Aunt Millicent?" Wendy called weakly. "Lottie?"

"No, my dear Wendy," came a familiar deep and growling voice from the shadows. "It is I."

Wendy's eyes grew wide. She had pushed her enfeebled body to its limits in her earlier adventure to Hook's house, and her limbs now merely trembled when she attempted to move them. She was quite helpless, which was an unfamiliar and terrifying feeling.

"Who is there?" Wendy cried, her voice trembling. She could see nothing of the room, contained as she was within the bedcurtains, but she could hear ominous footsteps.

"Pretense between us now would be quite absurd, my stricken beauty. Do you not agree?" Hook's voice came from quite near the curtains, but Wendy still could not see him. It was maddening, and she felt as if she might scream.

"Surely you cannot see properly in such darkness, my dear. Allow me to light the lamp." And suddenly the room was illumined, though the light shone through the bedcurtains such that Wendy still could still not see beyond them.

"You are a very naughty young lady, Wendy **Darling**. Peering through a gentleman's windows." And here Hook tisked with ironic disapproval. "You must have **known** that I could not allow you to expose me. You surely knew I would come to you, sweet Wendy." He strolled casually through the room, casting monstrous shadows upon the bedcurtains as he moved in front of the lamp.

"How could you keep a dead body in your house like that?" Wendy asked still horrified by what she had seen.

"Well," replied Hook with a smile in his voice, "in all fairness, it was **his** house. It would have been rather ungentlemanly of me to toss the fellow out like so much rubbish."

Footsteps sounded once more, and Hook's voice was much nearer when it purred, "And asking that question, my beauty, proves that you could **never** have been a pirate, Red-Handed Jill or no. I'm really quite disappointed in you."

"No!" cried Wendy, as suddenly one of the bedcurtains was pulled aside, and there stood Hook, his hair once again long and curled, his right hand now quite gone, revealed by his rolled-up right sleeve. His arm once more ended in gruesome scars, as if his hand had been lost years hence.

He still wore a gentleman's clothing, but the neat trousers, starched shirt, tidy vest, and pinstriped jacket looked quite ridiculous now that Hook's true form had returned. He made a mockery of gentlemanliness. But, then, he always had.

Hook carefully tied the bedcurtain back, using its attached satin ribbon. He smiled pleasantly down at Wendy in her bed, and then walked once more out of her sight. He seemed to enjoy speaking to her when she could not see him.

"It has been you from the very first," accused Wendy. "Pretending to be a doctor, insinuating yourself into our lives, toying with Aunt Millicent's affections..."

Still out of Wendy's sight, Hook sighed before replying, "Oh I must admit your dear aunt's money was the sum of her attraction, but as time went on and I began to remember myself, I grew far more interested in **you**, Wendy Darling, and the wonderful opportunity to hurt Pan where he feels most."

Suddenly, the bedcurtain at the foot of the bed was pulled aside, and Hook stood grinning at her as if he were enjoying this game extremely. He once again tied back the bedcurtain by its satin ribbon.

"But," Wendy stammered in confusion, "but Peter is gone!"

"Yes, I know," grieved Hook with a wistful expression. "I did not remember myself quickly enough to kill him."

As Hook walked out of her sight once more, Wendy found herself coughing quite fiercely, shudders shaking her frail form. When the coughing came this strongly, there was little she could do to stop it. Her body began to shiver from fever and chill, and she feared that she might faint as she had done outside Hook's house.

"That's quite a cough you have, my dear. Perhaps you should see a doctor." Hook laughed lightly before continuing, "It's quite tragic, really."

Breathing heavily after her coughing fit and wiping blood from her lips, Wendy spoke past the excruciating pain in her chest. "Tragic?" she gasped. "What is tragic?"

Pulling aside the last bedcurtain with a jerk, Hook shook his head in mock regret as he tied the satin ribbon to hold the curtain back. "Poor Wendy Darling could certainly have been saved. Alas! If only she'd had a proper doctor attending her ... instead of a bloodthirsty pirate!" And here Hook laughed as if he had told a rather wonderful joke.

"But how am I to know?" Hook pondered, posing with his left hand upon the bedpost, his chin raised high as if he were posing for a portrait, rather than only terrorizing one young lady in her bed. "I have stolen only a doctor's **life**, not his knowledge."

Wendy began to speak again, but at the first sound that passed through her throat, the coughing seized her once more, and this time she very nearly lost consciousness. She lay prostrate upon the bed, watched Hook with eyes that were bright with fever and wide with fear.

"You would die soon enough, my beauty, but I tire of waiting. You might expose my schemes, of course, but my more pressing reason is that Pan is **gone**. I can now but wreak my revenge upon the one part of him that remains: his Wendy."

As Hook seated himself familiarly upon the edge of her bed, Wendy saw that he had a revolver in his coat pocket. But what concerned her more immediately was the syringe he set upon the bedside table. Hook reached for her arm to pull it from beneath the bedclothes, but Wendy struggled against him.

"You are too weak to fight me, my lovely Wendy. You may as well relax." Hook then chuckled once more as if at some private joke. "Oh, the pain this shall cause your Peter Pan! How delightfully **delicious**!"

Wendy attempted to wrench her arm from his grasp, but her strength was no match for him. "No!" she gasped breathlessly, coughing again as her throat reacted to the sound.

Holding her arm in place with his scarred stump, Hook took the syringe once more into his hand and leaned close to Wendy, tendrils of his hair falling forward to lay upon her breast.

"I have always appreciated a good poison," Hook smiled into her face with a wicked grin. "The morphine shall serve quite admirably ... though it causes no pain, which rather takes the **fun** out of it." Hook sighed, his breath brushing her face and stirring her hair.

And then with a sharp jab the needle was in Wendy's arm and she renewed her weakly futile struggles. As the morphine entered her arm, Hook watched her face with great enjoyment. And then when he removed the needle, Hook explained pleasantly, "It will take a short while to do its work, dear girl."

* * *

Peter had flown nearly all the way to Neverland before his speed began to ebb. The entire time, he had been fretting over how to help Wendy, but he had arrived at no obvious solutions.

The only solution that he did consider was kidnapping Wendy whether she liked it or not.

And, given his options, that sounded like a pretty good idea to Peter.

Peter and Tinker Bell turned sharply around, flying even more quickly toward London than they had flown away.

* * *

Peter arrived at Wendy's window, only to hear talking coming from inside. Afraid to be seen, Peter hovered to the side of the window.

Wendy's weak voice said, "But how...? You were dead..."

A deep growling voice replied, "**Was** I dead, my beauty, if I lived on in your stories?"

Peter started. That couldn't be Hook! Hook was dead! But ... but what was he talking about? Peter fought the urge to fly inside immediately to attack this possible-Hook, but decided to wait and listen a moment first, so that he might know what he was up against.

Wendy had apparently made some small sound, for the deep man's voice continued, "Oh, yes, Wendy Darling, your stories renewed **me**, just as they renewed Pan. You have even reclaimed my hand."

Wendy's voice was barely a breath when she replied, "But how? You died."

"Hmm. I suppose I did. But allow me to ask you a question, my lovely. Did I ever die in your **heart**? Or did you continue to tell my story? Even when your stories died, when you thought they were all gone, Pan and myself were not destroyed. For some small part of our story burned as the tiniest flame in the darkest corner of your heart. We could not be destroyed, Wendy Darling. Because **you** would not destroy us."

Peter risked a glance into the room, and indeed the man not only spoke like Hook, but looked like him as well. The long curling hair, the missing right hand, the arrogant posture ... it **must** be Hook! But, then, was what he said true? Had he and Hook been saved by Wendy's stories somehow?

"And so when you destroyed Neverland, my dear..." Hook paused at Wendy's gasp, then smiled charmingly. "Did you not realize that it was you who killed Neverland, lovely girl? When your stories died, it died with them. But Pan and I were cast out, not destroyed, but with our world destroyed behind us. Nowhere to go. Because of **you**."

Peter's head was spinning with all he had heard. But as he hovered at the window lost in thoughts almost certain to make him cross with confusion, Hook had not been idle.

"A kiss, my beauty, my lovely storyteller, before we part. And if there is blood upon your lips, it will make it only that much sweeter." Hook's grin was quite quite wicked in the darkness as he leant toward Wendy helpless in her bed.

"Get away from her, you!" Peter screamed, flying in at the window to hover in mid-air in the middle of the room, holding his knife in his hand and ready for battle.

Hook turned slowly, his grin growing even more pleased. "Why, Pan! How very nice of you to join us!"

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**Author's End Note:** One or two more chapters to go after this one (depending on how much I write).


	12. Heroes and Villains

**Author's Note:** Thanks again to those who have reviewed. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray. :)

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Peter landed lightly upon the floor of Wendy's bedchamber, his sea blue eyes focused intently upon Hook, who still bent over Wendy in her bed, his long hair hiding her face from Peter's gaze.

"I told you to get away from her," Peter said icily, taking a step forward with his knife in a ready grip. He looked quite as he always had in Neverland, restored to the lithe slenderness of youth, wearing his leaves and vines, his hands and feet once more quite dirty, for he had enjoyed many adventures since he had lived in Wendy's house but bathing had not been one of them.

Hook stood with an easy grace, turning to face Peter fully, his arms spread wide as if in innocent explanation. "How very **cross** you seem, Pan. Have you been **thinking** again? You know, you really should **abandon** pastimes at which you perform so very poorly."

Peter began to walk slowly toward Hook, but the pirate too moved slowly away, so that they circled each other warily in Wendy's dimly lit bedchamber. Their elongated shadows danced upon the ornate wallpaper, blending and separating in an elaborate dance, just as Hook and Peter themselves had always danced together in their eternal struggle.

"Why are you here? Why have you been pretending to be a doctor?" Peter demanded. In truth, he was very confused by Hook's presence in London and in Wendy's house, but he also felt quite cocky about the fact that he had mistrusted the supposed doctor from the very first.

Hook rolled his eyes as if Peter was simply too droll for words. And perhaps he was. "You are a fool, boy! Nothing but a **fool**!"

"Me? A fool? Funny, I thought **you** were the one who got eaten by a crocodile," Peter gloated with a laugh.

"A minor set-back," Hook said dismissively. "Your sweet Wendy was kind enough to bring me back, depositing me in this world where there is ever so much more to plunder. In comparison, Neverland was quite **lacking** in riches."

"What?" cried Peter as they continued to warily circle each other, each taking a step that coincided with the other's. Peter had not noticed how quiet Wendy was, and if he had he would most likely have blithely assumed that she was sleeping. He had no way of knowing that, instead of mere sleep, her languor was due to Hook's lethal dose of morphine which was even now coursing through her veins.

No, Peter did not notice, and Peter did not think, for Hook had been quite accurate in asserting that thinking was not one of the boy's strengths. Peter, instead, allowed himself to be drawn into discussion with Hook, for he never could resist responding to a taunt.

"Oh **yessssss**," purred Hook with a sly smile. "You are a fool, my boy, because you let this opportunity take you, instead of **you** taking **it**. You lived on the filthy streets like a beggar, while I arrived with the same lack of memory, and became quite wealthy in a rather short amount of time."

"How?" spat Peter. "By robbing and killing?" He took a quick step toward Hook, but Hook simply took a corresponding step back, and their dance continued.

Hook smiled a very self-satisfied sort of smile, and bragged, "Oh, I killed one pathetic doctor, it is true, but it is really quite simple to obtain the benefits of living well, if you are simply willing to do what is **necessary**."

"I would rather starve!" declared Peter. "I only kill villains like **you**!"

Hook tisked and gazed at Peter with sardonic disappointment. "Oh, Pan. Still so full of noble intentions. When will you learn how the world really works?"

"To be like you?" Peter's chin lifted proudly. "Never!"

For it was true that, even when he had remembered nothing of Neverland or his past, Captain James Hook had been a villain through and through. An unrepentant, arrogant, bloodthirsty villain. It was simply who he was, and who he always would be.

And Peter, with the same lack of memories, had retained his honor and nobility. When he saved Wendy and Miss Crawford from the motor car, it had become clear that even when sleeping on the reeking and squalid streets of London, Peter was in his heart a hero. An innocent, arrogant, impetuous hero. It was simply who he was, and who he always would be.

It was how Wendy saw them in her storyteller's heart, and it was how they had therefore been created, though Wendy herself had never realized it.

Hook pulled the revolver from his pocket, now grinning with delight. "How unfortunate that you brought only such a very small knife, my dear boy. I think you shall find that you are quite outclassed."

Peter flew into the air and toward Hook, his knife outstretched with deadly intention. But Hook deflected the knife with the length of his revolver. Hook's weapon would not be useful unless he could keep Pan at a distance, which would be difficult in the small bedchamber. Also, though he would have Peter believe the opposite, Hook was in fact rather at a disadvantage in this fight, due to only having one hand, and not having his hook to use as an additional weapon.

Peter flew about the room, laughing and taunting Hook, never staying in once place long enough for Hook to take aim. "I guess you don't remember how to fly. That's too bad!" And at those words, Peter flew quite close over Hook's head, using his knife to cut off a long lock of hair.

"Shall I give you a haircut, Captain Hook? You'll need one if you want to pretend to be some stupid doctor again." Peter made another pass, cutting off another lock of hair while Hook made every attempt to grab the boy to send him to the ground at a suitable distance. The revolver was proving a rather ineffectual weapon, but Hook had not expected that Peter Pan would arrive, and so he had prepared not at all for such an eventuality. He had planned only to inject Wendy with the poisonous dose of morphine, merrily watch her die, and then leave the house in silence. This was decidedly **not** going according to plan.

Long locks of curling black hair now decorated the floor of Wendy's bedchamber, and Peter flew in laughing circles around Hook. During one of his soaring swoops along the ceiling, however, Peter unintentionally flew far enough away from Hook that the pirate was able to take aim ... and fired his revolver.

"Aarrrrrrgggggh!" screamed Peter, not with the pain of the small wound in his leg where the bullet had grazed him, but rather in rage at Hook. He soared furiously toward the pirate, his knife now held to plunge into Hook's heart.

Hook took aim as quickly as possible, most likely not accurately, only to find that Peter knocked his revolver aside, sending it flying across the room spinning across the rug toward the door. As Peter flew past, he grabbed the candlestick from the bedside table to use as an additional weapon.

Neither Peter Pan nor Captain Hook, it must be noted, paid any attention whatsoever to the soft sound of running feet out in the hallway. Even if they had, they would certainly have felt that no one in the house could play any role in this epic battle, for such was the pride of both.

Peter flew back toward the ceiling to build speed for another charge, certain that Hook was now quite helpless without a weapon, but as Peter flew toward him, Hook suddenly snatched Wendy from the bed and held her thin body so that she and her long white nightdress hung in front of him, his handless right arm supporting her by wrapping around and pressing against her throat.

"Have you looked at your Wendy, Pan?" Hook taunted, angling Wendy's body so that it protected him from Peter's knife. He would drag the girl with him as he left, if necessary, but first he could not resist taunting Pan, for Hook was as vulnerable to such prideful displays as Peter himself was.

"Have you not noticed how limp she is?" Hook used his left hand to lift one of Wendy's arms, and then releasing it abruptly so that it fell slack against her body. "How pale?" And Hook stroked his fingers along Wendy's bloodless cheek.

"Don't you touch her!" screamed Peter, watching with horror, uncertain how to kill Hook without injuring Wendy. Why was she not moving? Surely she could not sleep through this! Why was she not fighting? What was wrong with Wendy?

"But Pan!" smiled Hook. "The lady does not seem to mind." And Hook pressed his lips to Wendy's.

Infuriated, Peter bellowed as he flew toward the pirate with all of his strength. Hook held Wendy before him even more securely, backing toward the door as Peter set upon him. Knowing that he could not use his knife lest he cut Wendy, Peter instead struck Hook as hard as he could upon the head, with the same candlestick he had thrown at the "doctor" months before.

Hook and Wendy collapsed to the ground simultaneously, blood seeping from Hook's head as he lay clearly unconscious or dead. Ignoring the no longer dangerous pirate, Peter dropped his knife to the floor and used both arms to carefully lift Wendy and pull her away from Hook.

Peter knelt beside her and touching her face. "Wendy?" he cried in confusion and fear. "Wendy, what is wrong?" But Wendy did not answer him, and tears gathered in his eyes. Though he did not precisely remember when Tink had nearly died in Neverland, he did know that the look upon Wendy's face was terrible and frightening.

Remembering the stories of Snow White and Cinderella, Peter quickly covered Wendy's lips with his own, putting all of his hopes and dreams and feelings into this one kiss, certain that this must work, because it had always worked in Wendy's stories. But when he lifted his head to look down at her once more, she lay just as still and lifeless as she had before. The tears in Peter's eyes began to fall.

As Peter knelt by Wendy and stroked her hair and spoke to her in urgent tones, all of his attention focused intently upon the dying girl, Hook had wakened behind him, for he had been only stunned by Peter's blow.

Taking Peter's knife from where the boy had dropped it upon the rug and slowly, silently coming to his feet, Hook walked up behind the distracted boy, the knife raising for a killing blow to Peter's neck.

But then there sounded into the night a loud sound. A sound which both Peter and Hook turned to investigate. But Hook fell almost immediately to the ground, blood now streaming from his heart as the pirate breathed his last, his dying eyes wide in disbelief.

For there in the bedroom doorway stood Miss Millicent Tilney in her high-necked nightdress, Hook's smoking revolver still clutched in her extended hand.

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**Author's End Note:** Next chapter is the last one.


	13. The Story and the Storyteller

**Author's Note:** Now that we've gotten to the end, I'd like to give some credit to Mara Trinity Scully, because it was something she said in one of her comments on my story "First Kiss" which gave me the very first glimmerings of an idea for this story. So thanks!

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Silence filled the room quite as completely as the firing of the revolver had done. The occupants of Wendy's bedchamber were momentarily frozen, as if in tableau.

The gun fell from Aunt Millicent's hand with a clatter, her arm still extended as if she were frozen in place. Then, with a halting step forward, still staring in horror at the dead, unblinking eyes of Captain Hook, she said softly, "A noise woke me." She looked around her as if suddenly emerging from a dream. "I hid in the doorway," she told Peter, as if feeling some deep need to explain herself. "I ... I killed a man!"

She walked slowly forward, as if compelled, staring fixedly at Captain Hook. As she drew near in the dim light, she gasped, "It is Dr. Carew!" Glancing around the room in disbelief, looking for some explanation that would erase all of this sudden and incomprehensible whirl of strangeness. With his long hair, Captain Hook of course looked quite different from the elegant gentleman who had so frequently conversed with her over mutton cutlets at luncheon, but there was no mistaking the features of his face, which she had so often admired in her soft, romantic heart.

But Peter paid the older lady no attention whatsoever. Captain Hook was no longer an issue, and so his only concern was for Wendy, who did not appear to be moving even so much as to breathe. "Wendy!" he sobbed. "Don't die! You can't die!" His tears dripped down to land upon Wendy's peaceful face, wetting her lashes with the moisture from his own eyes.

Gathering Wendy into his arms, Peter pressed her to him as if attempting to pass his own strength and warmth directly into her body. Her arms dangled from where he held her, and her head rolled heavily backward until Peter pressed it firmly against his own bare shoulder. "Wendy!" he cried, rocking her in some instinctive desire to comfort both her and himself. "Wendy!" The skin of her face was cool against his neck. All traces of her fever had departed. She did not move.

Aunt Millicent seemed to come to herself suddenly, realizing that her niece lay upon the floor, held by a boy scantily dressed, it seemed, in nothing but leaves and vines. This seemed quite an inexplicable development, and quite improper as well. It might be noted that Aunt Millicent seemed considerably more concerned about the impropriety of her niece's embrace with a scantily-clad young man in her bedchamber than she was about the dead gentleman whose eyes now stared at some faraway place no living person has ever seen. But, in that elegant lady's defense, the problem of a dead gentleman on the floor was considerably outside her sphere of understanding, and so she focused on that which she could understand.

"Unhand my niece!" demanded Aunt Millicent. "She is not even properly clothed! Nor are you!"

"Clothes?" shouted Peter. "Clothes? Wendy is dead! And you care about clothes!" Cradling Wendy's head close to him, Peter continued to weep, and continued to rock.

"Dead?" Aunt Millicent felt suddenly as if it were she who had been killed. Her body felt quite leaden, as if all meaning for life had left her in one horrible moment. Yes, the kind Dr. Woodhouse had warned her of this eventuality, but to have it occur so unexpectedly soon! For the beautiful Wendy who had been once so filled with life ... for her beloved niece to be gone ... it was simply unimaginable. The young lady had been the center of her life for so long now that her absence felt like the absence of Aunt Millicent's own heart.

Pressing another desperate, tear-flavored kiss to Wendy's lips -- _perhaps it takes more than one to work_ -- Peter whimpered, "It works in your stories, Wendy! Why won't you wake up?" He pressed another kiss to her lips, and another, and another, convinced that Wendy's stories were true, convinced that he could save her just as so many princes had saved so many ladies in the tales Wendy had told him.

Peter looked up at Aunt Millicent in grief and betrayal. Wendy would not wake up, and the world was a very very **wrong** place to allow such a horrible thing to happen. But as he looked up at the older lady who stood nearby with her hand pressed to her trembling mouth, Peter felt something against the side of his neck which was wet with tears.

He felt a breath. A breath against his neck. Wendy's breath.

"It worked!" he cried, pressing several kisses to Wendy's mouth as if to ensure that she continue breathing. Now, in truth, it would be difficult to say whether Peter's kisses did truly awaken Wendy as he believed, or whether Wendy had been breathing softly throughout the entirety of his lamentations and he simply had not noticed. But Peter's belief was the most true explanation from the perspective of the heart, and so let us believe as he does.

Wendy was once again saved by Peter's kiss.

She still did not move, however, and lay very cold and still. Her breath against Peter's neck had been barely a whisper of sensation.

"She is alive," he told Aunt Millicent, who breathed a most unladylike sob of relief, which sounded rather like a most inelegant hiccup. "But something is wrong with her."

"She has been very ill," explained Aunt Millicent, her expression still deeply sad as she stepped nearer and knelt beside Wendy and Peter upon the rug.

"Ill?" asked Peter in confusion. "She told me so, before, but what is it?"

"She is dying," the older lady explained gently.

But Peter shook his head stubbornly. "No!" he insisted. "I will save her! My kiss will save her!" Peter shifted Wendy in his arms so that he could see her face more clearly. "I will save you, Wendy. I will. I promise."

Aunt Millicent gently put her hand upon the young boy's bare arm, explaining with obvious sorrow, "There is nothing we can do for her now. The doctor has said so."

Peter gazed down into Wendy's pale, peaceful face, unable to even see her chest rising with her meager breaths. He tried to think, but his thoughts kept getting muddled. He thought of Hook's taunt on that subject, and his face set in determined lines. He **would** think! He **would**!

"I have an idea," he at last said to the older lady who knelt beside him. "I think I can save her, but I have to take her away right now, before she ... while she ... it needs to be right now."

"Where would you take her? And what would you do to her? I simply cannot permit this, young man!"

"But I think I can save her!" Peter objected impatiently. "If I take her now, I think Neverland can save her! But we must go now ... before something bad happens to her. I must go now!"

Aunt Millicent hesitated, torn most terribly between the advice of her head and her heart. Her head insisted that allowing some strange leaf-clad boy to abscond with her near-dead niece in the darkest of night would be not only the greatest of improprieties but also a disservice to the trust Wendy's parents had placed in her when they'd given their daughter into her care.

Aunt Millicent's heart, however, said that her very dearly beloved niece was dying, and that if there was some small chance that Peter could save her, then she should let him try.

Not accustomed to listening to her heart, and feeling still some bruising from the last time she had done so in entrusting her feelings to Dr. Carew, Aunt Millicent struggled for a long moment, but even she realized there was little time to lose. Wendy looked quite nearly dead already, and so if she were to give her charge into the care of this Peter Pan, Aunt Millicent would need to do so now.

"Go!" she finally cried, more than one tear hovering within her eyes. "Go! Save her, and keep her safe, as I have not been able to do."

But Peter shook his head a moment, insisting, "This was Hook's doing, not yours." Aunt Millicent had not the slightest idea of who "Hook" might be, but this was not a time to ask questions. She understood that the boy was saying that she was not to blame for her niece's endangerment ... and perhaps one day she would come to believe what he said. But that day would not be this day.

She would not have guessed in that moment, but that day would come in the future partly through the support and caring given to her by a different doctor entirely, and one far more trustworthy, for the kind and generous Dr. Woodhouse was of an appropriate age and was not, in fact, a pirate in disguise, which was a considerable point in his favor.

"Go," Aunt Millicent said softly to the young man she barely knew. "Save her if you can."

And so Peter stood somewhat awkwardly, holding Wendy's body in his arms. Though she was some years older than he was now, she had become so frail and thin that her weight was inconsequential. The only difficulty presented by her greater age was that she was rather taller than would have been easiest for Peter to carry.

But Peter was determined, and so he held Wendy to his mostly-bare chest and walked to the open window. He glanced back only once, and did not throw Hook's motionless body even the barest glance. Instead, he smiled to Aunt Millicent and said, "Thank you."

And then Peter flew from the window with Wendy in his arms, leaving Aunt Millicent to run to the window in awestruck wonder. She stood framed in the window, watching the skies into which they had disappeared, and thinking with growing hope in her heart, _A boy who can fly ... perhaps he can save her after all._

* * *

And so Peter and Wendy flew into the air, away from all things ugly and ordinary. Away from tapestried pillows and never-ending piano lessons. Away from corsets pulled tightly for special occasions and mutton cutlets for luncheon. Away from Oxford Street and Whitechapel and workhouses. Away from pink and white wallpaper in hyacinth designs with pomegranates. Away from St. John's Wood and Kensington and Regent's Park and Bloomsbury. Away from glass cases filled with pinned butterflies. Away from polite small talk with Miss Elizabeth Crawford and her elegant mother. Away from Gibson Girl hairstyles and fashionable clothes. Away from motor cars that frightened the horses. Away from Mrs. Eliot and her daughter who did not need help with her embroidery. Away from parties with tea and punch and cakes of which a proper young lady could not partake lest she appear indelicate. Away from well-dressed people who stepped over young men starving upon the sidewalk. Away from worrying what the neighbors should think. Away from the niceties of table manners. Away from the proper things to say and the proper way to live and the proper thoughts to think and the proper ways to do absolutely everything.

Peter held Wendy's body close to him as he flew, her hair streaming behind them in waves that gleamed silver as water in the moonlight.

And as they flew, as they flew further from all they left behind, and flew closer to Neverland, Peter felt Wendy's skin grow warmer, her breath stronger and more even. She still had not moved, but her chest now visibly rose and fell with each breath, and this was quite enough to bring a relieved smile to Peter's face. He flew fast as ever he could, sure that his idea had been right, and that Wendy could be saved by Neverland.

What Peter did not realize, of course, was that it was not precisely Neverland which was bringing Wendy back toward health. In her own world, Wendy was only a storyteller -- a magical and wonderful storyteller, to be sure, but still only a storyteller. As they neared Neverland, the land peopled by the characters in Wendy's stories, the land carved and shaped by her own thoughts and dreams, Wendy ceased gradually to become merely a storyteller, and became also a part of her own story.

And so as Peter flew onward toward Neverland, Wendy's flesh bloomed, so that her body was no longer so sharply boned in his arms as it had been when they had started their journey.

Wendy would have become heavier during this process if her health was the only boon returning to her, but it was not. As their flight continued, Wendy's body grew smaller, shorter, her face more rounded, and faint freckles reappeared upon her nose and cheekbones.

It was as they approached Neverland upon the horizon, the sun casting the clouds in shades of pink and yellow, that Wendy began to stir in Peter's arms. Blinking her eyes in confusion, Wendy asked, "What happened, Peter?" and then turned her head to see Neverland below them in all its beauty.

Peter landed on the very highest peak of Neverland's highest mountain, so that they could see the Neverland stretching around them on all sides. Setting Wendy upon her feet, Peter was pleased to see that she stood strong and healthy under her own power.

"Why am I back in the Neverland?" Wendy asked, looking about her with dazed eyes.

"Look at your feet, Wendy," Peter replied in what seemed to be not an answer to her question. But when Wendy looked down at her feet, she saw her once-ankle-length nightdress pooling upon the ground around her. Pulling her arms up, she saw that her sleeves too had become impossibly long.

"What has happened to me?" Wendy's voice now sounded frightened.

Pushing up one of her sleeves, Peter took her hand in his and looked into her anxious blue eyes. This alone seemed to comfort her some small amount, and so Peter then spoke. "You were ... you called it 'ill'," Peter tried to explain. "I was afraid you would die. So I brought you back, and now you are well again!"

Wendy shook her head in complete befuddlement. "But ... how...?"

Peter sat down, pulling her down to sit cross-legged beside him. "Well, I heard Hook talking." He thought about telling her the story of Hook's second-time death, but then decided that it could wait until another time. "He said that you healed him and you healed me, with your stories. And he said you healed the Neverland. So I thought if I brought you here, maybe it would heal you, too. And it worked!" And then Peter grinned, impressed with his own cleverness.

Looking down at her smaller hands and feet with wonder, Wendy insisted, "But why am I smaller?"

Peter shrugged. "I don't know. But it isn't bad, right? You look like you did when you were here before." He seemed entirely unconcerned by this change, just as he had been unconcerned by the changes in the Neverland. It simply was not in Peter Pan's nature to fret over such trivialities.

Wendy, however, still considerably influenced by the "real" world which required logic and reason to answer all questions, puzzled over the entire situation at some length.

What she did not realize, of course, was that such questions cannot be answered by logic and reason. The Neverland is a place of imagination rather than logic. And so, since in her stories and in her imagination Wendy was not ill ... she therefore was not ill in the Neverland. And since in her stories Wendy had not aged ... she therefore was still a child in the Neverland.

When she climbed within the world of her own story, when she became a part of her own tale instead of only its storyteller, Wendy's being had ceased to follow the logical rules she thought she understood. She would eventually forget such concerns, of course, for the Neverland does nothing so well as distract the childhood mind. But some small remnant of adulthood lingered in Wendy's mind, even if only for a moment.

And then it was gone.

And Wendy Darling laughed.

* * *

Some who believe only in facts and figures might say that Wendy Darling died that tragic evening in her bedchamber, and that imagining her departure to some finer place is but an effort to comfort those who grieve for her loss.

But those who see not only with their heads but also with their hearts know the truth of it.

Aunt Millicent knew the truth. Peter and Wendy had helped her to learn to see with her heart, and she learned to share that knowledge with others. When he was fetched soon afterward from boarding school to live at home, Slightly found her quite a changed woman, and a much warmer and happier mother. Dr. Woodhouse, comforting her in her grief at the loss of her niece, found her a much more kind and generous woman than would previously have been the case.

The entire brood of Darling boys knew the truth of it. Nibs, in particular, stood at the nursery window one evening and looked out at the night sky and wished them well, though there was a small lump in his throat that had once been his feelings for the girl who was not truly his sister.

And, if truth be known, Mary and George Darling in some part of their hearts did know the truth, as well. Though they grieved for their daughter's loss, they also wished her all happiness, choosing to believe that Peter had succeeded in saving her life as Aunt Millicent seemed convinced that he had done.

Those who had loved Wendy chose to think of her as happy and healthy in some wonderful place filled with everything she had ever imagined.

And they were right.

* * *

Having entered her own story, though she did not know she had done so, Wendy was in a rather unique situation. She still contained a great many stories within her heart, perhaps -- in fact -- an infinite number, for her talent as a storyteller was great.

And so Wendy's heart was filled with ever so many stories that she quite happily entertained Peter, the Indians, the Lost Boys who occasionally appeared in the jungle wide-eyed and confused, and even sometimes the pirates, during times when she was captured and taken prisoner on the Jolly Roger, which did happen from time to time.

And if Wendy upon occasion told tales of Captain James Hook, it certainly did not mean that the pirate himself might someday return to the Neverland, or so Wendy believed.

But as she told her stories, Wendy caused the Neverland to change ever so slightly, here and there, in an infinitely delightful number of ways. New rivers carved their ways through the jungle, elephants appeared to stampede in herds and then mysteriously went away again, trolls took up residence in one of the caves, for a time the Indians vanished and a tribe of African warriors who stood on one leg took their place, pink flamingoes flew sometimes over the lagoons, and any number of other thrilling changes occurred.

And each time a change occurred, Wendy and Peter and the other residents of Neverland simply accepted it and forgot that things had ever been any different. They enjoyed each day and each adventure and did not worry about such grown-up concerns as logic and reason.

For though Peter had indeed long been Neverland's undisputed king, holding sway over even the weather, it was also true that Wendy was the Neverland's hitherto secret queen, holding in her heart the very fabric and existence of the place which had been created from her stories.

With Wendy there to tell stories, Neverland would indeed go on forever, ever renewed, ever fed by her imagination, ever growing and changing in marvelous ways.

And because they were ever children in Wendy's stories, neither Peter nor Wendy ever aged, but instead stayed always as they had been when they first met, hovering on the edge of something more than childhood, but still retaining childhood's magic. They kissed many first kisses, always forgetting after a time that they had kissed before, and so each kiss was precious and new and surprising. Each kiss was wondrous and magical and **first**.

And so Peter and Wendy were perhaps the luckiest children who ever have been, for they lived first love for all eternity, never knowing that it should grow familiar and common.

For indeed Peter and Wendy never grew up and never grew old, but stayed together always in Neverland, enjoying joys that other children can only dream.

All children grow up, after all.

Except two.

**- The End -**

_____________________________________________

**Author's End Note:** Okay, I sort of apologize for the sappiness of the ending there, but it's where the story was heading from the very beginning. I'm just a hopelessly romantic sap, myself. :)

So the story's done. Hope you enjoyed it. I know there was a lot of angst along the way, but I think it was worth it to earn the sappy ending. Thanks for reading, and review if you want to pay the piper. :)


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